Chapter Text

When to Float, When to Swim

Dawn rose over the shores of Costa del Sol, and the sun bathed the beach in rays of gold. The sea brightened, blooming into the color of champagne as a new day triumphed over night. 

Aerith's mood rose with the sun as the trials aboard the Shinra-8 faded from her mind. The tropical sunlight washed her face in gentle heat , and she marveled at the clear sky. She wondered how she had ever hated looking at it. 

She'd awoken early. Tifa, wrapped in blankets despite the heat, looked peaceful for the first time in weeks. She heard Barret and Nanaki snoring in the next room over. Even Cloud had seemed ready to collapse last night.

Better to let them rest, she thought. She left their room hunted for a spot she could enjoy the morning weather.

The public beach required “appropriate swimwear" - whatever that meant - for access. So Aerith wandered to the town's outskirts, leaving the colorful bungalows behind. She found a small, secluded strand to herself and meandered over to it. She took her boots off and dug her feet into the sand, delighting in the warmth. 

It was nice to have a little alone time every now and then. In fact, Aerith couldn’t remember her last genuine taste of solitude. Since leaving Midgar, the party had stuck together, sharing tents or inn rooms to save money. Her childhood in the lab was under constant Shinra monitoring. Even in the slums, she knew she was under the Turks’ surveillance. 

When had she been alone last?

Aerith paused. Suddenly, alone felt eerie and unnatural.

She shivered despite the unfurling heat. She wrapped her arms around herself and turned, ready to head back to the inn.

Leaving the group was a mistake. She hadn’t even left a note. She picked her boots up and spun on her heels, intending a quick trot back. 

Thud. 

Aerith took two steps before she bumped into something dense and bounced off it. She lost her balance in the loose sand and stumbled back, barely avoiding a total fall. 

A flat voice spoke a single word: "Deft". 

Aerith gathered her thoughts and looked at her would-be obstruction. 

Cloud stood in front of her, a ghost of a smirk flitting over his mouth. 

Heat rushed into her face. “You can’t sneak up on people like that!” She stomped her foot and prepared to hurl a boot at the smug mercenary. “Aren’t you supposed to be a bodyguard? Good bodyguards make their clients feel safe, you know.”

Cloud ducked in anticipation of the would-be missile that sailed over his head. “Good bodyguards are sneaky and agile.” He stood back up and his face darkened. “They’re also good at tracking their clients when they go missing first thing in the morning.” He sighed. “Without a note.” 

Aerith gulped. 

“You all looked so peaceful. I thought you’d like some extra sleep.” Aerith looked back at the sun cresting over the ocean. “And I wanted to catch the sunrise.”

“Still dangerous.” His chiding tone hardened. “Shinra’s still looking for us. And there are monsters.”

His face fell. Aerith cocked her head and peered at him. Why was he looking at his feet?

“And…I would have come with you if you’d asked.” He spoke the last words in a faint, rushed whisper. Anyone else might have thought he had sneezed.

Aerith's head dipped in a dramatic nod, her eyes expanding wide. 

Time to push Cloud’s buttons.

 “Ooooh, I see. Mister Bodyguard is trying to pick up some extra shifts before vacation starts.” 

Annoyance flashed on Cloud’s face. “No, but I worried that—" he caught her comically overround eyes. Realization dawned on his flustered expression. “Yeah,” he agreed. Another smirk danced across his lips. “Gotta have enough spending money for the trip.” 

His sense of humor might have been as obtuse as a Shinra tax document, but it was worth coaxing out from time to time. 

“Well, since we’re both here now, why don’t we enjoy the shore?” Aerith chimed. “Can’t remember a day as lovely as this one.” 

“Why not.” Hardly the emphatic whoop she had been hoping for, but you took what you could get with him. 

He had already crouched and started to untie his boots. His fingers flew over the laces, and he tossed them in a pile with the shoe Aerith had thrown at him earlier. 

Maybe Cloud just showed his enthusiasm in other ways. 

Cloud caught her smiling at his quick motions and slowed down, rubbing the back of his head. Bashful, bashful, Aerith observed. She beamed at him, hoping to make him feel less self conscious. 

“I used to…” Cloud cleared his throat. “I used to like dipping my feet in the river. Back in Nibelheim.” He stepped towards the gentle surf lapping at the shore. “Wanna see how the water is?” 

Aerith eyed the ocean uneasily. “I dunno, Cloud. I don’t really like open water.” 

Cloud glanced back at her, eyebrows knitting together. He looked like a boy trying to sound out a difficult word in a book- he could be so expressive when his guard was down.

“But you’ve swum with us before," he noted. "Through the swamp after the Midgardsormr died. And in Junon, when we hunted for Chadley’s stupid intel.”

Aerith snorted. “If by ‘swum’ you mean ‘clung to Red and tried not to drown,’ then sure.” She gave his forehead a gentle tap. “Not a lot of chances to learn how to swim in the slums.” 

“You should learn.” Cloud turned to her and began striding into the soft lapping waves. “It’s a good skill to have.”

Aerith balked as he marched through the surf. “Right now?” 

“No time like the present.” 

So much for a quiet morning together on the sand.

“Cloud, I don’t even have a swimsuit.”

He paused, already knee-deep in the water. “Oh. Right.”

He looked down at his own clothes: an older-model SOLDIER uniform that was also a far cry from resort wear. “Well, it could be better this way. After all, what if we have to jump in some water to run from a monster?” 

He nodded his head as if he were agreeing with himself. “Yeah. If you learn to swim in clothes, you can definitely swim in a suit. But if you learn to swim in a suit, you may feel weighed down if you have to swim in your clothes.” 

“You know, that almost made sense,” Aerith teased. “But you know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think you jumped in the water without thinking, then invented a reason you wouldn’t look stupid in wet clothes.” 

Cloud froze.

Gotcha, SOLDIER boy.

“You wanna learn how to swim or not?” he groused. 

Aerith feigned a long, labored sigh. “Fiiiiine. But I don’t have any gil to pay you for the lesson.”

“The uh,” Cloud took a breath. “The standard bodyguard fee should apply.” It was hard to tell in the rosy dawn light, but Aerith thought she caught a blush rising in his cheeks. Maybe.

“I’ll add it to the ledger,” Aerith declared. 

Then she looked back at the limitless expanse of water. “And I'll, uh… get into the ocean now.” She inched closer to the waves. 

“Take your jacket off first. It may be a little too heavy for beginners once it gets wet.” 

“Are you sure you don’t have any ulterior motives here, Mister Merc?”

An unmistakable red flustered Cloud’s face that time. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” 

Aerith sniffed and tossed her jacket with their boots. “How cold is the water?”

“It’s pretty warm,” Cloud encouraged. “Feels nice.” 

As she waded into the shallows, Aerith had to agree. It felt like bathwater, with the waves’ foam tickling her calves. 

She waded deeper, thankful that the break was gentler here than she had seen on the main beach. 

“Come out about chest deep,” Cloud coached. “Bring your legs up and turn your arms like this to keep your head above the water.” He sculled his arms back and forth, like an exaggerated orchestra conductor. “And kick your legs a little so you don’t lean too far in one direction.” 

Aerith felt her dress balloon outward in the water and drift around her. The weight dragged her down more than she thought it would, but she followed Cloud’s instructions. After a few false starts, she was treading water right alongside him. 

“See? Not so hard.”

“Or maybe it’s really hard, and I’m just a natural!”

He chuckled. “All right then, Miss Natural. Try actually swimming now.” He twisted so that his legs were parallel to the ground. Then, he began pulling himself through the water with long, easy strokes. “Keep your fingers together and move your arms like paddles.” 

He demonstrated by swimming a circuit around her. 

“Kick your feet, keep your core tight, and turn your head to the side when you need to inhale.” 

He twisted his body back and planted his feet on the sandy bottom of the shallows, standing back up. “And if you get tired or overwhelmed, remember you can still touch the bottom.” 

Aerith let her feet back down, reassured by the contact with the ground below. “Right. That helps.” She twisted herself into a swimming position like she saw Cloud do and began paddling. 

“Move your arms in bigger circles than that,” he guided. “Paddling your arms like Red does will wear you out faster.” 

She obliged him and immediately inhaled a mouthful of seawater. 

She stood upright, spluttering. “That was awful!” she croaked. “It went up my nose!” 

“That’s why you turn your head to the side,” Cloud chided.

"Well, it’s a lot to keep track of! Kick your feet, keep your abs tight, squeeze your fingers together, turn your head- that’s a lot of coordination!”

“It is a lot,” He agreed. “That’s why it’s good to learn now and not when you’re jumping into a lake to run from a monster.” 

“Speaking from experience?” 

“Might be.” 

Her second attempt went better. She bobbed an unsteady lap around Cloud, and then another one. By her third go-round, she felt practiced enough to pick up the pace. Her arms burned pleasantly with the exertion. 

And then a wave smacked her in the face. 

Aerith shot back up, hacking in a very unladylike fashion for the second time. “Tide’s going out,” Cloud observed. 

The waves did look choppier now than when they arrived at the beach. “Maybe it’s a good time to call it a lesson.” 

Aerith looked out at their little bay. 

“Or, we could call this lesson two! After all, we can’t always count on swimming in smooth water after all.” 

She put her hands on her hips and considered the rolling waves. “What if we had to jump off the cargo ship last night?” She put her hand over her mouth in mock horror. “Or what if we got swept away by merciless river rapids?” 

Cloud gasped as a cresting wave slapped his face. He ran his fingers through his hair, wincing. 

Or maybe you don’t want the morning to be over yet, a small voice in her head hissed. Selfish. Why are you leading him on? You know there’s only one way for this to end.

Aerith pushed the ugly thought out of her head. She kicked off the sandy bottom, propelling herself forward with long arcs of her arms. After a few moments, she felt the rhythm of the waves’ ebb and flow and timed her breathing with it. 

“Not bad.” Cloud swam beside her. He dove under waves as they approached, then popped up without missing a stroke. 

“Show off,” she ribbed. 

“Easier this way,” he retorted. “Tides can overwhelm you before you know it. Better to flow with their energy when you can.” 

They continued alongside each other, and Cloud occasionally offered pointers. After a few minutes, they made it past the breaking waves. The water calmed back to a lake-like serenity. 

Emboldened, Aerith shot ahead. She felt the weight of her dress pulling against her and a heaviness in her arms. She hadn’t worked out this hard in a while, and she was starting to wear out.  

Aerith turned, smiling. “You know, you don’t have to tug on my dress to get my attention. You can just…” She looked back to where she thought Cloud was.

Nothing. 

She turned in a full circle, her eyes darting back and forth. The tugging on her dress strengthened. She realized with horror that her view of the shore was receding even as she paddled in place. 

She was being swept out to sea. 

“Cloud?” She heard the panic in her own voice. “Cloud?”

“Aerith!” 

She heard his voice, faint over the sound of the waves and wind. How far had the water dragged her already? 

“You’re caught in a rip tide!” he began to yell, and Aerith was thankful that she didn’t have to strain to pick out his voice. 

“Stay calm and BREATHE,” he continued. “Turn onto your back and stretch your arms and legs out.” She did as he asked, and she began to float. She realized that it was easier to conserve energy in this position. 

“You’re gonna float like that until I can get to you.” Aerith could hear the effort he took to keep his voice calm. “Just keep floating like that. I’m coming.” 

She kept floating on her back. She was tempted to turn upward to look for him, but the thought of moving her limbs any more exhausted her. 

“I’m coming.”

More floating.

“Almost there.” 

Every few seconds she heard him again, always a little louder. A little closer. He was trying so hard to soothe her. Aerith closed her eyes, pushing her rising panic back down and forcing herself to breathe. 

She felt a grip as solid as ironwork clasp her arm. “I’m here. I’ve got you.” She felt herself moving through the water, still on her back. The tension drained out of her as she felt Cloud’s arms wrap around her. He pulled her into his chest and began kicking backward, facing away from the shore the shore. “I’ve got you.”

“I know you do,” she murmured. She wrapped her arms around his, comforted by the power of his movement through the water. She was too tired to say much else, but Cloud kept a dialogue going the whole time. 

“Should be just a few more minutes.” 

The waves and tide beat against them.

“We’re gonna get back into the breakers soon.” 

It was a long swim. How far had she been swept out? 

“I think we’re almost at the point where we can touch the bottom.” 

Aerith smiled at the normally taciturn Cloud’s attempts to keep her calm. Before long, they reached the shore, dragging themselves back to their pile of shoes. 

They collapsed on the sand in a heap. 

For a while, they lay there, panting. 

Cloud shifted first. He began to wring the extra water out of his tunic. Without looking at her, he asked in a quiet voice, “You okay?”

“Yeah.” 

Aerith’s ears began to burn. What was she thinking, darting off so soon after learning to do one simple stroke? 

You always have to dash ahead, the ugly voice in her head spat. You just have to prove you can handle the hard stuff alone. And look where that got you last time. 

Last time? 

The ugly thought and the ugly voice evaporated as quickly as they appeared. Another leak in the sieve of her memory. 

When had she rushed ahead, alone, before? 

Aerith hated the reminders that she used to know more about her story. That there was some grander purpose that she had lost a hold of. 

Silence settled between Cloud and Aerith as they lingered on the sand, looking up.

“Your form looked good.” 

Cloud’s tone was sheepish. “Before you got swept out, I mean. You looked good. Strong.” 

A few months ago, Aerith thought, he’d have stewed in the silence until she could needle him out of his shell. He was making more attempts to talk first. To reach out. 

She rolled over and batted her eyelashes at him. “Oh? Were you admiring my technique from a distance?”

He turned away from her, swallowing audibly. “No. I just… I thought…”

Maybe a little needling was still fun. 

“You could be a natural after all,” he finished lamely. 

Aerith poked Cloud’s ribs. “You certainly felt plenty strong out there. And I’m glad you told me how to float. I’d probably have gone under if I'd tried to tread water the whole time.” 

“It’s a good skill to have,” he commented. 

“What, floating?” 

“No. Knowing when to float and when to swim.” 

Cloud sat up, resting his arms on his knees and gazing out at the sea.

“One of the elders in Nibelheim told me that when I was learning.”

He turned his head back to look at her. His eyes shimmered like the azure of the ocean behind him. The eyes were prettier though. 

“He said if you’re swimming in open water, there are times when you need to swim, and times when you need to stop and float. Catch your breath. Make sure you’re heading in the right direction.”

Aerith sat up too, enjoying the midmorning heat drying out her dress. “That’s a good lesson,” she agreed. “But it’s hard to follow. I spent so much of my life feeling like I was floating in place. My whole life was in Midgar, and I just waited for things to happen to me.” 

She reached her arms outward, embracing the breadth of the world around her. “Now that we’re out here, all I want to do is charge forward.” 

“But then you’ll wear yourself out. Or get in a dangerous situation.” His gaze flicked back to the churning waves, then back to her. 

“Isn’t that what bodyguards are for?” she chirped.

“Hm. Maybe.” 

“Especially swim coach bodyguards.” 

“Is that what I am now?”

“Is that all you want to be?”

He stiffened. 

Too much. Don’t pressure him.

“I…” He faltered. 

“I’ll tell you what. If we ever get in the water again, you swim wherever you want, as fast as you want. Lead the way. But if you get tired, float on your back and catch your breath.”

He fell back down into the sand, his face unreadable. “And I’ll catch up to you and carry you until you catch your breath. All the way back to the shore if I need to.” 

Aerith felt her heart pounding in her ears. Her voice came out smaller than she expected. “Promise?” 

Cloud continued to look up at the sky. “Yeah. As long as you promise to know when to swim forward and when to wait for me to catch up.”

***

That memory belonged to a different person. A living person.

Aerith drifted through the Lifestream, alone amid a cavalcade of interlinked souls. At the moment, she was little more than a thought. Even still, she pictured herself floating in the position Cloud taught her.

She stirred from her reverie. She tried to cling to the sensations of light and heat from her memories of Costa Del Sol. 

But there was no warmth in death. 

Here, she was a shadow of a memory. A lingering essence. A casualty of Sephiroth’s relentless pursuit of dominance.

Aerith felt the pull of the Lifestream around her. An invitation to merge, to join, to flow, without identity or self. A Chorus of Ancient voices sang of unity and oneness: consignment to oblivion. Leave life to the living , the voices beseeched. 

“Not yet,” Aerith replied aloud. 

She manifested her body: a tangible barrier between herself and the Lifestream. She garbed it in her favorite outfit. Her thin pink dress appeared, overlaid with the red jacket Elmyra had bought her in Wall Market. A heavy pair of men’s boots—perfect for trudging through the slums’ dirt roads—appeared on her feet.

She even added the pink ribbon to her hair, though a lump formed in her throat. She missed the weight of the materia that should have rested within it.

She flexed her fingers in front of her face. Seeing them reminded her of who she was. Seeing her body made a clear divide between where she ended and where the Oneness of the Lifestream began. 

“I know that if I join up with you, it’ll just get harder to unjoin. To come back to myself.” She zipped up her jacket, trying to recall warmth. “I hate being alone. But I hate leaving company to go back to being alone worse.” 

The voices receded, understanding. All returned to the oneness in their own time. We will wait for you, daughter.

Find your peace in death. 

“There are things I need to know first.” 

How could Sephiroth avoid—even control—the influence of the black Whispers? 

What were these white Whispers that had appeared, and why did she feel so... close to them?

Why could she sense another journey, deep in the past, that had ended in tragedy? How had she known about her death in Midgar, and when had she lost that knowledge?

What actions should they repeat, and what should they avoid?

How could she cast Holy when the time came? Her mother's materia was dull. Until it wasn't. Before her death, it had begun to shine again. How? Why?

Other worlds called ot her: some people that should be dead lived. How?

How to fight Sephiroth in person this time.

How to get back to my family.

Her family. A terrorist, a bartender, a ninja, a pilot, a robot, an immortal, and a… Nanaki. 

And Cloud. 

She wanted to grow old with them. To start a garden that wasn’t entombed under a steel plate. To pick up shifts at Seventh Heaven and worry about bills and wonder when Marlene had gotten so big. 

She wanted to live in the world she would help to save. 

“There’s so much I have to do,” Aerith whispered. “So much I have to remember.” She had known so much at the start of her second life. The Whispers had taken most of it. Death had splintered what little she had into fragments she couldn’t pick up.

“How do I get back what I lost? And how can I learn things I never knew in the first place?”  

Things like what Sephiroth could do. 

All insight and wisdom come from the Planet, the Lifestream replied. 

And some places around the Planet resonate more strongly than others.

“Like the Lifesprings,” Aerith reasoned. 

Like the Lifesprings, the chorus concurred. Find these places. See the Planet as we see it. 

Aerith considered their words. To see the world from one set of eyes was too limited in this place. 

So she adjusted her perspective, and pictured the entire world in her mind’s eye. 

Sense the motion of the Planet. Its currents. Its energy.

Sense it move. Sense it shift. Our mother Gaia is not a static thing.

Aerith focused on her view of the Planet. She saw winds blowing clouds across the surface. She saw rivers bringing water to the oceans. She saw oceans undulating within currents that spanned the globe. 

She saw the Lifestream pulsing. 

It wasn’t chaos, just order that humans couldn’t see. It ebbed and flowed like the tides and weather above. Where it surged, life bloomed. Where it waned, death followed. But death only created space for new birth when the Lifestream returned again. 

It has a footprint,  the Chorus of Cetra explained. It meanders in some places longer than others. Aerith saw regions where the Lifestream lingered. There, enormous trees of natural materia formed. Ancient knowledge could propagate itself in branches of crystal.

And every living soul is a piece of the Lifestream, sent forth to live in the bounty of the Planet.  

Aerith marveled at the revelation. The vastness and intricacy of the world.

Humanity is the universe experiencing itself.

Aerith considered the lesson and gazed past the Lifestream- or perhaps above it. She saw once-imperceptible specks of it crisscrossing the surface of the planet. The specks blinked in and out of existence, mirroring the Lifestream below. 

People. 

When you gaze upon the world like a Cetra can, you can see the path each life takes. 

And you can see where it lingers, imprinting memory in places of import. See for yourself, child.  

Straining to keep the motes visible on the Planet’s surface, Aerith narrowed her vision. She focused on the Grasslands. 

A single spirit, buzzing as a single mote of energy, caught her attention, darting between a handful of places in and around the town of Kalm. An entire lifetime unfolded within the idyllic community. 

As she focused, she made out details about the mote’s life. The mote was a woman. Her name was Dora. She lived in the same house her entire life, where generations of her family grew up, lived, and passed. 

Crystals that only Aerith could see rimed the building. The buildup of a lifetime of Dora’s memories, feelings, hopes, and regrets. 

Aerith traced Dora’s mote to the market where she did her shopping. There was the stall that Dora always lingered at, admiring the handsome produce man. Dora was always too shy to approach him. 

Over there was the mill where Dora worked, grinding pigments from nearby cliffs into paint to sell. Aerith picked up the trick of stacking trays of loose rocks higher than anyone else on the mill’s payroll. Dora’s were the only tray towers that never fell over. 

She watched Dora’s daughter grow up in their old house. She felt her pain when her daughter set off for Junon to study engineering. Dora’s mote didn’t shine as brightly after her daughter left. She saw Dora get sick, and she saw Dora and get better. 

She saw the celebration when her doctor declared remission. The whole neighborhood came out with food and drinks. Even her daughter came back for a rare visit. It was the best day of Dora’s life. 

She saw Dora get sick again. 

She saw her return to the Lifestream. 

Aerith beheld Dora’s life condensed into a crystalline sphere at her fingertips. It was like the tiniest orb of Materia, granting Aerith a lifetime of skills, knowledge, and wishes. With wonder, she released the crystal from her focus, and it dissolved back into its liquid state. Dora’s mote flitted back into the collective river of souls. 

“Everyone in the world has a story like this,” she breathed. 

You do too, child.  

“It’s… overwhelming.” 

It doesn’t have to be .

“Do you even see things you lost? Or that you forgot?”

You can. But beware. Death takes away trauma. Perhaps your mind shed things that are better off forgotten.  

“There’s nothing I want to forget,” she insisted. 

Twenty-two years. Seven in Shinra’s lab. Fourteen in the slums. Less than a year to live— to thrive—with the people she loved. She would relive every second of that year and still ask for more. 

No, she would take more. Somewhere in her life path would be the memories she lost. The way back to the world where she lived. She would scour the Planet and relive any memory that would help her regain the insights she used to have. And she would return to them.

She was done floating. It was time to swim.

***

Aerith thought back to that first morning in Costa Del Sol. They stayed on the beach far past when the others would have woken up, waiting for their clothes to dry. Enjoying the quiet.

She remembered turning back to her would-be swimming teacher. "Hey, Cloud?”

“Yeah?” He was still lying in the sand alongside her, his hands behind his head.

“How’d you know where I was this morning?” Aerith gazed back at the shore. “There are lots of little beaches like this outside of town.” 

Cloud paused. She saw his eyes narrow and his lips purse: the telltale sign of Deep Cloud Thoughts. “I just started walking. None of us have beach clothes so it couldn’t have been the public beach. Figured none of the tourist traps were open yet so I headed out of town.” 

“But there are still dozens of little spots like this.” Aerith grinned mischievously. “And I got pretty good at walking without leaving tracks so I could sneak out of Elmyra’s house growing up.” 

“Yeah, I didn’t see your boot prints anywhere,” Cloud agreed. “Dunno. Guess I’m just… good at finding you.”

“Good at finding me, huh?” Aerith’s grin blossomed into a full smile. 

She closed her eyes, enfolded by the sound of the waves and the glow of the sun. “I guess that’s a good answer.” 

Chapter Text

Between Life and Death

There was only pain in the darkness. No name. No self. Only pain.

Was it seconds that passed?

Days? 

Years? 

Lifetimes? 

There was no knowing, for there was only the pain.

And the cold.

Cold ? She thought. Cold was new .

She? Am I a she?

A flicker of something. Memory? Voice? It was gone as soon as it appeared.

But the cold stayed.

Why was she cold? Why…am I cold?

To feel cold was to be able to feel. The conclusion came to her in a flash. Feeling. Sensation returned to a body that she didn’t realize she had. A body drifting in a void. She could not see the space her body occupied. If there even was space around her. 

PAIN .

The pain intensified, as if defining a target for it made it concrete. The pain was no longer an abstraction. It was a searing agony that tore through her back, pierced her spine, and speared her insides.

It tore out the front of her stomach on the other side. She had a place now for the pain to localize and radiate outward.

COLD.

At the same time that pain radiated outward, from the very center of her being, ice crept up her fingers and toes. Rimy tendrils spread over her arms and legs. When the pain and cold met she thought she would be undone.

The act of dying was anguish itself.

But, she already knew that.

I already knew that? Memories. That flickering thought returned. A voice, as perceptible as a whisper in a howling wind. You already knew that, my dearest. The flicker began to fade. 

You need to… recall… yourself …

She remembered dying once before. It didn’t hurt any less the second time. 

No, it hurt more. Some part of her knew that. The first time there had been the sword. The cold. 

But then acceptance. 

Oblivion. 

Transcendence.

The pain wasn’t limited to the physical. That realization cracked something within her. Her fragile sense of self could only feel so much. She could sense other parts of her missing: her identity, her memories. Shrouded and locked behind a wall of black glass out of reach.

She took that realization- the discovery of pain which had nothing to do with her body- and wielded it like a pick. 

She chipped away at the black glass that separated who she was now with who she should be . She began to understand the physical pain. I was stabbed. I was far to the north, and it was cold . 

She wanted to understand this emotional hurt, the one that her phantom of a memory told her wasn’t there last time.

Why? Why is there regret this time? She screamed at the wall. Why did she expect hot tears of anger and regret to spill out of her broken, lifeless body?

Because this time, you might have prevented it .

A chip in the wall. A single moment of insight returned to her.

I could have prevented it, this time .

She demanded more of herself. How? What do I mean? But the wall remained silent, and she could no longer sense an angle of attack. The vault containing her memories had yielded all it would for now.

The pain began to abate. Her arms and legs numbed until there was no sensation at all. The torment lancing through her core deadened. She realized that blood no longer spilled from the wound. 

She was dead. 

And yet, she lingered- anchored by regret to this space between existence and nothingness.

Not nothingness, dearest one . The flickering voice returned. It was clearer to hear beyond the veil of mortality. Unity. Togetherness. Reunion .

She tried to make sense of where she was- what she was- in the revelation of her own death. She reached out with her senses. Did she still have eyes? Ears? Could she reach out and touch something with incorporeal fingers?

There was only blackness and emptiness around her, and so she drifted. She strained some part of her to sense the flickering voice again.

Call out, little petal. She froze. Call out and I can find you.

That name meant something. A term of affection she hadn’t heard in years crystalized in her mind. The sensation of tears falling on her phantom face overwhelmed her.

She recalled love and warmth and brought that memory to bear. She sculpted the sensation into something solid. She needed something real in this place of unreality. She called out with her own voice. “Mom?”

Her voice was delicate and feminine, but trembling. A single syllable rang out in defiance, and it emboldened her. “Mom! I’m here!”

Words like “here” have no meaning, Petal. The voice replied with some amusement. We are everywhere, connected to everything. Find your connection to mother Gaia.

“How?” she cried out. “I don’t know who I am. I don’t know about any connection!” Her voice cracked and shrank to a whisper. “It feels like I’ve lost so much.”

The sense of amusement faded, replaced by one of sympathy. You have given so much, Petal. And you have had so much more taken from you. 

I will do what I can to pull the curtain back.

She felt a gentle touch on her consciousness. Something not-of-her reached out to the black wall in her mind and pushed. A light- or a sensation of light- assaulted her mind.

Flashes of incomprehensible color and heat and sound and smell rushed into her. The flashes swirled in incomprehensible fury. She cried out and tried to shield a face she didn’t have with arms that didn’t exist. “It’s too much! I can’t-”

The sensation stopped.

Her mother’s presence wrapped her in an embrace. 

Dear child, what have they done to you? There should not be decades of hurt in a soul so young. The embrace grew warmer, and she felt serenity replace the melange of sensation that assaulted her earlier.

Let’s start smaller , the presence suggested. Do you remember your name?

“I remember…”

What could she remember? 

She scratched at the surface of her mind, seeking the memories that had formed last. Her most recent thoughts while she still drew breath.

“I remember a sword.” She shuddered. “I was cold. We were… far to the north, I think.”

Go on, dearest.

“I was kneeling. My knees hurt. I was… asking for something.” She wracked her brain, forcing herself to go deeper. “I was afraid, but I had made my peace with what had to happen. I somehow knew what was going to happen.” 

The sword. The pain. The cold. It had been both a memory and a prediction.

“But the peace in me shattered.” She recalled heavy footsteps. The sound of combat boots slamming against the stone floor with superhuman speed. She heard a man’s scream erupt.

“NO!”

She looked up to find the source of the scream. “I saw his eyes.” 

They were beautiful. “It was like looking into the sky on the clearest day you’d ever seen. But they were so afraid.” She had never seen fear like that before.

His eyes? Her mother tried coaxing more memories out of her. Whose eyes?

She was too caught in a reverie to respond. “I don’t know what the rest of his body was doing. I was too busy trying to look into his eyes. And have him look at me. I needed to tell him… that it would be okay.”

But he focused on something else?

“Yeah. He was swinging his sword. He thought he could make it in time.” She started trembling in the sensation of mother’s embrace. Her mind felt like it might split in two. “He did… but he didn’t.”

And then the pain, and the cold, and the regret. “I could have prevented it this time,” she repeated to herself.

This time, Petal?

But she was too caught in her own reflections to respond.

“I lost him again,” she whispered.

She remembered collapsing into his arms. He cried out again. A name.

Focus, dearest. What did he cry out?

She remembered him holding her. The strength of his arms. She remembered regret. Why hadn’t she asked him to hold her more? 

She was… safe… there…

She remembered him sobbing, but her hearing already began to fade. Her vision dimmed. The man held her broken body so tightly, like he could somehow hold her together. “I’m here,” he whispered. “Aerith, I’m here…”

Aerith.

She felt the name settle in her mind. Aerith.

Her mother caressed the name and held the essence of her daughter even tighter.

AERITH.

“My name is Aerith,” she breathed.

“And I died in his arms.”

Whose arms, Aerith? Keep pulling your memories forward. Her mother spurred her on, and began again to push against the barrier in Aerith’s mind.

“I touched his face.” His eyes were the last thing she saw. “And I tried to give him peace.”

She gazed into those beautiful eyes until they were all she could see. They were filled with tears and were spilling down his face. “Cloud… it’s okay…”

Cloud.

She felt this name settle in her mind alongside her own.

Cloud.

Her mother did not know Cloud, but she embraced this part of her too- a keystone of her memories.

CLOUD.

“His name is Cloud,” she gasped.

“And I needed to save the world to keep him safe.”

She felt the weight of the realization settle in her spirit. The weight gave her presence in this place that wasn’t a place.

Pull back the curtain, Petal. Remember.

The weight of her memories settled around Aerith’s flickering will. They added substance and form to her sense of self.

She reached out to the black walls that surrounded her will. She saw a reflection in their glassy surface. 

Pale arms, with dirt under her fingernails. A humble pink dress, bought second hand. A threadbare red jacket. Brown hair, tied with a fraying ribbon. Green eyes that didn’t glow like his, but sparkled with the joy of being alive.

She stood tall. Her eyes gleamed and her face radiated joy, even in this not-place. She was a child of the slums, but the way she carried herself revealed her real heritage. 

“I am a Cetra,” she declared to her reflection.

You are a Cetra, her mother’s voice agreed.

“And Cetra connect to something bigger than themselves when they die.”

Then forge that connection, Aerith.

She reached out with her hands, straining against the obsidian bulwark. The barrier that kept her from her birthright. She clenched her hands into fists and began to beat against it, repeating the facts she knew to be true. “My name is Aerith!” Smash.

“His name is Cloud!” 

Smash.

“I am a Cetra!” 

Smash.

“I am connected to the Planet!” 

Smash.

“And these walls can’t keep me from the world I love!”

SMASH.

Her final blow shattered the boundary between her sense of self and the hereafter beyond. A cascade of emerald light breached the cracks and washed over her, a baptism of sight and sound and places and love and regret and humanity in its purest form.

But she was ready for the deluge this time. She wrapped herself in thoughts of Aerith, the planet, and her mother.

She wrapped herself in thoughts of Cloud.

This time, the swirl of sensation washed over her, through her, and was gone.

She realized she had squeezed her eyes shut.

She opened them to see herself floating in a sea of green light. Gossamer threads flowed like liquid silk all around her. In each thread she could see a single soul’s shining essence. The threads wove together and apart across space and time, an ever-shifting tapestry of connection between people and the Planet.

The Lifestream.

She felt her own soul threading through the grand design, her body and clothes an abstraction. A means of keeping her sense of self distinct from the overwhelming Oneness of the planet.

Manifesting a body helps, but it can feel lonely to maintain it all the time. “Mom?” Aerith responded. “I can’t feel you as strongly here.” She began to panic.

Yes you can, dearest. More amusement. You merely feel everything else too. Let me help .

Aerith turned in the direction her mother’s presence felt the strongest, and felt her jaw drop.

Cetra Ifalna- her mother- stood before her, arms outstretched.

She had kind eyes the color of leaves at the peak of summer. Smile lines creased their corners, where Aerith only remembered worry lines before. Her hair, which Aerith always recalled as limp and dull in Shinra’s labs, now glowed like burnished copper. 

She wore a simple red dress and violet shawl, and an amulet around her neck with an empty setting. For our family’s materia , Aerith realized. The track marks from years of needles were missing from her arms. Her cheeks were rosy, no longer sunken and pallid.

Aerith launched herself forward, gliding through the Lifestream. She wrapped her arms around her mother with joy. She felt the tears spilling down her face at the same time she felt her mother’s tears fall into her hair.

“It’s you. It’s really you.” She couldn’t tell who was saying it, or whose joy and disbelief was stronger. She breathed in until her lungs might burst, catching the smell of green trees and fresh snow. The scent of her mother that she never forgot.

Her mother. Aerith remembered the pain of her loss. The lingering spirit that talked with her from beyond the grave. She remembered the spirit fading as she grew up, and the pain of loss a second time.

She remembered her connection to the Planet, and her ability to hear its whispers. She remembered her life: the Church, the flowers, Avalanche, the journey. Sephiroth. Cloud.

She felt a strand of her soul reach through the Lifestream to Ifalna. It connected them and shared her revelations. And in return, Ifalna opened her soul to Aerith.

“You were the last of us,” Iflana wept. “But you had such a grand destiny. It wasn’t fair, what Fate put on you.”

Fate?

Aerith paused on the word. Something felt… wrong about putting such reverence on that word.

“You were fated to save the world,” her mother continued. She held Aerith so tight that she didn’t notice Aerith’s stunned posture. “Fated to die, so others might live.”

No, Aerith thought. That isn’t right anymore.

She searched through her memories and gaped at how much was missing. She felt like a half-empty vessel, leaking something vital out of the cracks of her psyche. Something she needed to reclaim.

Iflana felt Aerith’s hesitation and pulled away, looking her daughter in the eye. “Aerith?”

“I did die,” Aerith said slowly. The confusion was plain on her mother’s face. “Yes,” Ifalna said. “And we reunited here at the source of all things.”

Aerith squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her palms to her temples. “No… I died.” Why was this so hard to tease out? 

“I died, and it hurt worse this time.” “This time?” Ifalna seemed perplexed. She was at a loss to give Aerith the explanation she was trying so hard to reach for.

“Yeah,” Aerith continued.

The act of dying was anguish itself.

But she already knew that.

She reached out with her mind, trying to connect to something in the Lifestream. Anything that could give context to this feeling of unease.

She could feel the stirrings of other souls as she reached out. Their harmony was interrupted by her discordant grasping. Dissonance and confusion lingered like whispers where she touched.

Whispers.

She strained her soul further, reaching out to the planet itself for answers. The insights came back maddeningly slow.

Whispers.

The Whispers caused the gaps in her memory. They attacked her in Midgar. On the Overpass. At the ruined reactor. Every time they struck her, they took something from her.

Because she knew what was supposed to happen.

Because she had lived it before.

Like Sephiroth had.

The hand at the other end of the blade that took her life. The mastermind that defied death time and time again in his attempt to blacken the planet with his hate. 

Aerith saw history play out before her.

At the moment of his final defeat, Sephiroth had somehow sent himself back. Sent himself, forewarned with the knowledge of his downfall.

But the Planet could sense this impending imbalance. Twenty two years ago, they sent a baby to Ifalna, swaddled in the knowledge of things yet to come.

It then deployed an entity even more primeval than the Weapons: the Arbiter of Fate. The source of the Whispers- was to monitor the passing of time and keep destiny intact.

And then Sephiroth led it to its death.

Between tears, Aerith explained this last gift of insight that the Planet gave her to her mother. 

“Sephiroth tipped the scales in his favor. He broke free of fate and exploited his knowledge of how things would play out to gain the upper hand. And he did it after making sure the Whispers took away my foreknowledge.”

Aerith couldn’t stop shaking in her mother’s arms. “The Planet sent me to keep the balance and I failed it. I failed my friends.” I failed Cloud.

“And now they’re left to pick up the pieces of my failure.”

They’re all going to die because I wasn’t strong enough to guide them.

Ifalna stayed silent as Aerith emptied her burdens between sobs. She held her daughter as they drifted through the Lifestream, two corporeal bodies floating in a sea of thought. She held her in silence as Aerith grieved a life and a destiny unfulfilled.

Finally, Ifalna spoke. Her voice trembled with anger.

“How dare you?”

Aerith started. She looked up to see rage burning in her mother’s eyes, but the fury was not directed at her. “How DARE you?!” Ifalna screamed at the Lifestream itself. The tranquil motes of thought and energy churned around her. 

“You bring the Arbiter to bear in your service.” She threw her head to the side in derision. “You awaken Weapons to do your bidding.” 

Her face twisted into a sneer. “You shepherd thousands of Cetra at the height of their civilization against the Gi.” The Lifestream around the two women foamed with Ifalna’s indignation.

“And you send a child-” tears fell down Ifalna’s face. “You send my child to be your last line of defense against this hellspawn?”

The Lifestream seethed into a fever pitch and Ifalna clutched Aerith to her chest. She held her daughter as tightly as the night of their escape from Hojo’s laboratory. It boiled and then seemed to shrink back in the face of Ifalna’s furor.

Aerith had never seen her mother angry before. She was always the picture of serenity, even in the depths of her suffering. But now the woman stood in defiance, separate from the afterlife’s unity. She demanded an explanation from the forces of creation itself.

Ifalna’s eyes crackled with energy. Her hair swirled around her in unseen winds. Her skin shone like one of the great summoned spirits of old.

“I served you faithfully through a lifetime of torment! When you took Gast from me I did not question it.”

Her hands tightened into fists. “When you left me locked in Shinra’s tower I did not question it.” 

Now the tears flowed freely from Ifalna’s eyes. “When you called me home and left a seven year old child alone in the slums of that pit- '' she spat the last word out- “I did. not. question. it.”

Her voice fell to a deathly still whisper. “I question you now.”

The swirling motes of the Lifestream hung suspended around the women. Their stillness seemed like the Planet itself was stunned at Ifalna’s impertinence. Aerith stared open mouthed at her mother.

Seconds, or centuries, could have passed in that dumbfounded silence. A single woman, holding her broken daughter, unbowed against the will of the Planet itself. The will coursed with the wisdom of hundreds of millions of dead souls, but Ifalna demanded an answer.

The answer came.

THE TALE IS STILL BEING TOLD.

The weight of the Voice overwhelmed Aerith. The Voice- if it could even be called that- was unfathomably ancient. It spoke in the same language that impelled mountains to rise and winds to howl.

THE ACTORS STILL STAND ON THE STAGE.

Aerith felt the very core of her soul tremble. She gasped for breath like she had carried something heavy on a miles-long march. She felt the need to bend, to bow, before the terrible and awesome presence.

But Ifalna still stood tall.

EVEN THIS ONE YET HAS LINES TO RECITE.

Aerith started. How could I still play a part in all this?

COME, CHILD OF GAIA. SEE THE TALE AS A CETRA IS MEANT TO SEE IT.

A tendril of the Lifestream reached out from the swirling churn that Ifalna’s anger had wrought. Like a hand extended before a dance, it entreated Ifalna to take it.

AND YOU, LITTLE ONE.

A second tendril appeared. Aerith reached out with a halting hand at the same time her mother did.

And they saw Time itself as the Ancients should.

Past, present, future.

All one and the same.

She gazed over the breadth of the planet and Saw. She saw everything that was, that is, and that will be at once. 

All time existed alongside each other in a span of time briefer than the briefest heartbeat. A dewdrop was at once a bead on a blade of grass, mist in the air, and the crest of an ocean wave.

She saw the wilderness to the far north give rise to the Ancient capital and collapse into ruin in one eye. At the same time, the other eye saw the grasslands to the east give rise to Midgar and collapse under Meteorfall. The centuries separating the events failed to be.

She saw her birth and her death in the blink of an eye. The same blink contained Cloud striking down a one-winged angel as the Lifestream itself rose in defense against the dread Meteor. She saw her soul guiding the planet’s will in an act of divine salvation.

She saw her reach out and take Cloud’s hand one last time.

She saw her sense of self subsumed by the Lifestream, her destiny fulfilled. She joined the Oneness of being that awaited all Ancients. She faded, and circled the Planet forevermore.

The Planet created, the Planet threatened, the Planet saved. All at once.

BUT THE BALANCE HAS BEEN SPLINTERED BY THE STARBORNE CALAMITY.

Jenova.

The dreadful, awesome voice thundered again. Aerith’s mind returned to her own perspective.

THE BIRTHRIGHT OF THE ANCIENTS WAS POLLUTED.

She saw oily, black streaks of despair begin to worm through the harmony of the Lifestream. Remnants of Jenova that could metastasize back into Sephiroth. A twisted form of immortality. 

Geostigma.

THE SON OF THE CALAMITY CHANGED THE STAKES.

She saw Sephiroth rise again after the Meteorfall. She saw a second figure, broken by grief, stand against the monster once again. And she saw the broken man strike down his enemy one final time. “Stay where you belong,” Cloud spat. “In my memories.”

And with what should have been his final breath, Sephiroth taunted his adversary. “I will… never be a memory.”

HE SENT HIMSELF BACK.

HE WAS LOST TO OUR SIGHT.

Aerith barely comprehended the impossibility of the statement. Ifalna’s eyes were as wide as saucers.

DIMINISHED WERE WE IN THE AFTERMATH OF HIS FINAL ADVENT.

Aerith began to understand. The game was to begin again. The cards were being dealt, but one player had slipped himself an ace.

Not an ace, she thought. An entire deck .

WE DID THE ONLY THING WE COULD IN THE TIME THAT REMAINED.

Ifalna buried her head in her hands. She began to see it too.

A SINGLE CONDUIT REMAINED TO US.

“You gave me the tools to oppose him,” she said.

SUCH THAT WE HAD.

Knowledge of her past life. Insight into the nature of the White Materia.

“But Sephiroth took them away.” Aerith’s hands balled into fists. “He corrupted the Whispers somehow. He sent them against me. And every time they attacked me I lost a little more of what you gave me.”

She didn’t have the strength to stay upright anymore. She curled into herself, wrapping her arms around her knees. “I couldn’t do it. He won.”

The finality of her statement rang out. Ifalna flinched as if Aerith struck her. The Voice of the Planet remained silent.

“No he didn’t,” Ifalna said slowly. She looked at Aerith, and back to the tendril that showed the Timeless view of the world. She saw time the way that all Cetra viewed the universe upon returning to the Lifestream. 

She reached her hand out again. “Look a little further than last time, Aerith.”

Aerith didn’t want to do anything more than fade into the magnitude of her own failure.

“Come on, Petal. Take my hand.” Ifalna had spent her anger. Her voice was warm. Comforting. Safe. Her voice made Aerith feel like a child again, cocooned against the cold of the world. She could stand back up.

Aerith stood back up and took her mother’s hand. With her other hand, she reached to the Lifestream again.

“Past, Present, Future,” Ifalna pointed out. “A flower is a seed, a bud, and a bloom all at once.” The two of them looked out at the limitlessness of creation. It collapsed into singularity again. “But not here, is it?” Ifalna guided Aerith’s gaze to the outskirts of Midgar. A moment that stood apart from the rest, a discordant note in a symphony.

Five souls met a torrent of darkness with their heads held high. Cloud, Barret, Tifa, Nanaki, and Aerith fought the deluge of Whispers at the height of their fury. Sephiroth, ever the mastermind, had pitted them against each other. The Whispers preserved the singularity of time. They ensured that events played out as they always had. As they always should. Train tracks running forward and back along the same path.

The Whispers ensured that Sephiroth would always lose, so they had to die.

And Aerith and her friends did the job for him.

Sephiroth had stepped off the train tracks of destiny. He taunted them into action, forcing an early confrontation. He goaded them into attacking him, and then hid behind the Whispers. The Whispers who stubbornly tried to keep the past and future aligned. Somehow, he had gained the power to elude them.

The Whispers stood between Aerith and Sephiroth, and so she thought she had to destroy them. She already had lost so much foreknowledge. Already reduced to a pawn when the Planet needed her to be a player.

Cloud, Barret, Tifa, Nanaki, and Aerith destroyed the source of the Whispers. The Arbiter of Fate fell so they could strike at Sephiroth. 

“And look at what happens then,” Ifalna said. Aerith heard excitement in her voice. “Look at time like the Cetra do.” She couldn’t. The singularity of time persisted all the way until the death of the Arbiter. From there on, Aerith saw…

Everything.

The future beyond the Arbiter’s death was a roiling chaos of probability. A seed was a bud and a bloom at once when planted before the Arbiter’s death, but afterwards? It was impossible to see. Potentialities collapsed on themselves like endless crashing waves. They reverberated forwards and backwards across the rail lines of time. A SOLDIER dead one in one timestream was alive in another one. A reactor bombed in one reality stood untouched in the one next to it.

Gazing further into the future was hard. The limitless permutations clouded her Cetra vision. But she could see Ifalna’s epiphany. “Sephiroth can win now,” Aerith began, “but he doesn’t have to.”

HE HAS OPENED HIMSELF UP TO COUNTERPLAY.

Just as soon as the hope rose in Aerith’s chest, she felt despair threaten to overwhelm her.

“But the others can’t see it! They’re going to do what they did before!” Sephiroth knew what they were most likely to do. He’s going to guide them to their deaths.

“I have to stop him,” Aerith gasped.

ALL ACTORS STILL STAND ON THE STAGE.

“I still have lines to recite,” she finished.

THIS WAS OUR FINAL GIFT TO YOU.

The Planet’s voice receded in her mind. The tendril that granted her the sight of a Cetra faded.

OUR… STRENGTH… MUST BE PRESERVED…

IN ANTICIPATION OF THE FINAL CONFLICT.

SO WE PLACE OUR HOPES ON YOU.

The Voice receded. Aerith and Ifalna, clinging to each other, drifted through the Lifestream. “I still have lines to recite,” Aerith repeated breathlessly.

The Arbiter of the Whispers was dead. Destiny was no longer set in stone. The past was immutable, but the future had fractured. It was a trillion trillion facets tessellating around an axis of uncertainty.

There was a future where she repeated her past life’s triumph. There, she guided the Lifestream against the Meteor. They'd save the Planet. The people she had grown to love would live out full, happy lives.

Except they wouldn’t all be happy.

Aerith gazed into the past-future beyond the first Meteorfall. She saw Cloud collapse in a heap every night. He slept on the floor of her church, his arms reaching for the flowers that still grew under the pulpit.

She saw Tifa try bitterly to give him something he never asked of her, unable to move on and build a life of her own.

She saw herself fading into the Lifestream. Felt her sense of self wash into the collective consciousness of all deceased Cetra. She never lived a life of her own.

And she saw Sephiroth rise up to try again.

If history repeated itself, then Sephiroth would send himself back once more.

Aerith strained to see time beyond the Arbiter’s death with her Cetra sight. She used to be able to do it effortlessly, but after the Whispers’ attacks, it was a struggle.

Futures where they lost. Futures where they won, but only after more blood had been spilled.

And for the briefest of moments, Aerith glimpsed a new facet of the universe. One into which she poured all her hopes and dreams.

A sword, plunging from the heavens.

A second sword swung in time to block it.

That world spun away from her as quickly as it had appeared. Aerith paused. 

Other worlds? 

Other lives ?

Impossibilities. Other Lifestreams beyond her own, permutations of fate that should never have happened. A slain Arbiter, rogue Whispers sculpting destiny as they saw fit. And a faint, gnawing sense that she should know about them. She'd forgotten things that she should have cherished. 

In the Lifestream, time was one. 

I can revisit my journey, she realized. Remember what I'd lost. 

And maybe see what role she could still play in this tale. 

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: You said that would happen

Somewhere deep within the Planet

The Lifestream thundered through the Planet, an emerald paradox of power and peace.

It rested with the serenity of a still lake. It coursed through Gaia’s unseen veins like lightning in a storm. It cascaded with the grace of gentle spring rain, bringing verdancy to a weary garden. 

Aerith struggled to accept the contrasts as she joined her spirit with it. One moment she was fighting for her life in whitewater rapids. The next, mists softer than any bed buoyed her up. She surfed tidal waves of raw emotion. She strolled through pools of utter tranquility. 

With Ifalna’s help, Aerith had learned to sense the Lifestream, to observe it. But this was the first time she had merged with it, trying to gain an affinity for its energy. She needed to learn its secrets. 

Aerith still manifested her corporeal body—clothes and all—to preserve her sense of self. She resisted the temptation to merge in full with the Lifestream as the other Cetra had. She feared that the Oneness with the others might make her too content to return. 

She had too much to do first. 

Aerith flowed through the Planet at the speed of thought. Over time, she gained a sense of geography from the Lifestream’s perspective. Some places sang out to her: Mideel, Cosmo Canyon, even parts of Wutai. She lingered in places where people lived in harmony with nature and the world’s sprit. 

Other places fought her. Mako reactors plundered the Corel Desert, Nibelheim, and Junon City. The Lifestream there thinned. Aerith couldn’t dwell there long without feeling sapped by the dreadful machines. 

And then there was Midgar.

Midgar made the other blighted zones look like gardens. It festered on the surface of the Planet, greedily devouring life and goodness like a gaping maw. She knew visiting the city would undo her in a moment.

So she drifted where she could, often accompanied by Ifalna. 

In one instance, time, they both soared through the Planet in corporeal form. Aerith asked why the other Cetra—or even humans—never visited her. 

“They are a part of the Lifestream,” her mother explained, the same way she might tell someone that water was wet. 

“The natural state of the world is harmony. After a Cetra passes, their soul persists and visits places important to them. Humans, on the other hand, join the Lifestream almost instantly. But in either case, their end state is always Oneness with the universe.”

Aerith shivered. The process sounded like dying for a second time, not something to await.

“Now,” Ifalna continued, “Cetra with unfinished business persist longer. I wanted to watch you grow up. To see you face to face at least once more.” She contemplated Aerith with a wan smile. Her face held an equal mix of pride and melancholy. “I fear that even my time distinct from the Oneness is coming to a close.” 

She floated closer to Aerith and wiped a tear from her daughter’s cheek. “But I will always stay with you.” 

Aerith looked away, blinking. She had deduced as much, but hearing Ifalna say it aloud made her departure real. I’ll be alone again , she realized bitterly. 

Ifalna wrapped her in the same kind of hug she gave in Shinra’s labs. She seemed to grow larger, shielding her daughter from their surroundings. The soft fabric of her robe and the scent of crushed pine needles filled Aerith with resolve. 

“But we still have some work to do, Petal. Let’s get you reliving your journey. I suspect there are insights you may have lost. Viewing memories with fresh eyes may restore some of the Planet’s foreknowledge.” 

Aerith nodded. “I wanted to go in order. From Midgar all the way to… the end. To the Ancient City.”

“But the Lifestream can’t support you in places where Shinra extracts it.”

“Right. But that’s where some of the most important battles took place. If there are chances to take back what the Whispers stole from me, it’ll be in Midgar.” 

Ifalna hummed in agreement. “You will need to go there. But not at first. Rebuild your presence of mind first. Reinforce your sense of self. Where is the earliest you can go on your journey and feel solid?”

Aerith surged through the Planet again, trying to reassemble her jumbled memories. “We rested in Kalm,” she began. “But it took a few days to get there. She fortified her mind and cast herself west from the little town. The grasslands gave way to Waste around Midgar. The brittle, gray soil stretched for miles around the Plates. It was the worst symptom of the city’s all-consuming hunger.

As vegetation withered, Aerith felt herself grow weaker. Ifalna lingered where grass still grew, too faint to follow her further. Exhaustion tore at Aerith’s soul, but she strained her spirit like a muscle. She forced herself to recount her experiences. 

What happened after we left the overpass? she wondered. The Arbiter died, and the five of us began to walk westward…

Somewhere in the Midgar Wasteland

…Aerith paused, blinded by the mid-morning sun. Her legs felt heavy and the new blisters on her heels already throbbed. 

“Note to self: boots from the thrift shop do not make for good hiking gear.” Her voice sounded too chipper in her ears, but someone needed to help keep the group’s spirits up. 

She had gotten pretty good at masking her own discomfort over the years. The world had enough misery in it without her externalizing more. She had decided years ago that her own feelings rarely mattered if she could brighten someone else’s. 

“Tell me about it.” Another woman’s voice, bright as crystal, snapped Aerith out of her reflection. “I bought these shoes for the extra padding on bartending days. They were great for standing still, but I keep tripping over them when I walk.” Tifa, walking at the head of the group, turned back to smile at Aerith. “We should do some shopping when we make it to civilization again.” 

Aerith had a hard time believing the leggy boxer tripped doing anything. Still, she appreciated the younger woman’s repeated attempts to reach out. Tifa was a natural bridge-builder. She soothed friction between the five runaways and coaxed the others to come out of their shells.

The team could fight together. Tifa seemed determined to prove they could live together too. 

“Or you could get used to walking with what nature gave you,” came a growl from behind the group. “Maybe you’d move faster if you thickened the pads under your feet.” The enigmatic creature calling himself Red XIII had not gelled with the rest of the group. Even Tifa’s warmth hadn't helped. “We could stretch our traveling funds further if we stopped spending on frivolities. Like clothing.” 

A man better described as a walking mountain of muscle barked a laugh. “And where the hell would that leave us the first time we made it into a town?” He walked alongside Tifa and carried most of the group’s supplies on his back. "Do you think we'd win any friends if Spikey walked into an inn with bare feet and his ass hanging out of torn pants?"

Barret Wallace, onetime leader of Avalanche’s radical splinter cell, may not have had Tifa’s tact. His charisma and protective nature did help ground the group, though. At least, it did when he wasn’t heckling their final member. 

Cloud, walking in front of the other four, reddened at the same time Tifa and Aerith snorted at Barret’s remark. His aloof—some might say standoffish—demeanor invited Barret’s ridicule. 

They all saw how flimsy his tough-guy persona was, despite his superhuman abilities. His large, expressive eyes betrayed a soft heart. He instinctively put himself in front of others when danger loomed. Most telling, the few funds he did collect from jobs went straight toward medicine and gear for the group. A little bit of Barret’s ribbing might help crack the icy shell he insisted on maintaining all the time. 

Aerith and Tifa snorted at the image Barret conjured. At the same time, Cloud and Red let out a “hmph.” Three rays of sunshine and two sticks in the mud, all eastbound together. 

They continued onward. The morning stretched into day, and the dry heat of the Wasteland sapped Aerith’s strength. A lifetime under the Plate didn’t prepare her for how exhausting direct sunlight could be. Her feet ached. 

“Anyone else getting a lot of dust in their mouth?” Tifa seemed uncomfortable with long silences. Every few minutes she’d try striking up another conversation. She smacked her mouth with a small “blech” and reached for a water bottle on Barret’s backpack. 

He unclipped it and handed it over to her with his good hand. “Believe me, you don’t know what ‘a lot of dust in your mouth’ means.” His tone was gruff, but not unkind. “Where I came up, there was more coal dust in the wind than air. Try eating when you’re spitting out mouthfuls of that shit between every bite.” 

He chuckled, lost in the recollection. “It’d get in your eyes, your beard, your hair as soon as you’d step outside. He jammed a thumb behind him, pointing at Red without looking back. “Hell, you’d spend two minutes on the mountain and we’d have to call you Black XIII.” He guffawed at his own joke. 

“Quiet.” 

At the head of the group, Cloud had stopped. He crouched and cocked his head. His Mako-enhanced ears often picked up things the others couldn’t. 

Red snarled. “A Shinra chopper. Approaching us.” 

Cloud nodded. “They patrol the Wasteland and make sure monsters don’t get too close to the expressways.” He swore. “They’ll have a radio on board."

Barret snapped a magazine into his prosthetic's gun. “Then they’ll be on the lookout for fugitives clearing out of the city.” He swore too. 

“We need to hide!” Tifa’s head jerked back and forth, looking for cover. Aerith scanned the landscape too. 

The wastes around them extended in all directions, a uniform span of flat, sun-baked clay. No plants grew in the Lifestream-starved desert. No rocks rose from the ground either. The reactors had stolen any geological diversity from the region. All that remained was a lifeless plain and a few gently rolling hills in all directions. 

They were exposed. 

Tifa shared a glance with Aerith, realizing the same thing. Aerith heard a thrumming on the wind now too: the chopper was getting closer. 

"Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Guess that leaves Plan C.” Barret reached into a pouch on his thigh and pulled out a large incendiary round. “I got one Fire in the Hole left.” He slotted the explosive into his arm and turned to Cloud. “They’re gonna start shooting the minute they see us. Have to imagine HQ gave out our descriptions.” Cloud crossed his arms but didn’t disagree. 

“You draw their fire while I line up a shot,” Barret continued. “It takes a while to prime and we only get one chance at this.” 

Tifa stepped forward. “I’ll run ahead too. Some of those Shinra choppers have two door gunners. I saw them when we climbed the pillar.” Her shoulders fell. “That’s how they got Jessie.”  

“We’ll get ‘em back,” growled Barret. “We’ll get ‘em all back. And we’ll start with this one.” 

Cloud drew his sword and checked its Materia. “You two stay behind.” He glanced up at Aerith and Red. “If any of us takes stray fire, we’ll need a barrier and healing ASAP.” 

Red shook his head, an unexpectedly human-like gesture. “I’m faster than the girl. She should stay with Aerith, and I can draw their fire.”

Aerith felt shame rise from the pit of her stomach into her throat. The other four scoped out a plan of action in moments. Meanwhile, she stood in the middle of the road, relegated to medic duty. She knew how to fight. She knew an entire arsenal of spells. Dammit, Cloud wouldn’t have survived Corneo’s Colosseum without her. 

“No,” Cloud blurted to Red. “Stay with Aerith.” He cleared his throat. “If Shinra wants anyone captured alive, it’s you two. If you stick together, they may not fire on you.” 

The thumping grew even louder. “There’s no time to argue,” he finished. “Tifa, Barret, with me.” The three lopped off in the direction of the chopper. 

Tifa spun back and shot the pair a smile. “We’ll be back before you know it. We’re professionals, after all.” She shot off, her long strides covering ground almost as quickly as the super soldier’s. 

It didn’t take long for them to disappear over a shallow crest in the landscape. 

When they were out of earshot, Red flopped onto his back and yawned, his voice shooting up a few octaves. 

“FINALLY. I can’t keep up hardass mode that long. I think it’s gonna damage my vocal cords for good.”

Aerith felt her jaw drop as she turned toward her companion. In an instant, the battle-scarred beast with a voice deeper than Barret’s was a kitten wiggling in the dirt. 

She didn’t speak. For a moment, she forgot how. She stared at the gaunt warrior, adorned in war paint, blind in one eye, with dried blood still on his fangs and claws. 

He even started to purr. 

“Also, I’m pretty sure you mentioned you gave world-class belly rubs back in the tower.” He cocked an eye at her. “Or was that just something you said to make conversation?”

Aerith kept gawking. 

“Oooooh, it happened already, didn’t it? You forgot our conversation last night.” Red stood up, adopting a more respectful air. His voice remained childlike. “You said that would happen. I just didn’t think it would be, like, right away.” 

Red’s last comment snapped her from her reverie. “I said what?”

“Yeah. Okay. What was I supposed to say again?”

Red padded back and forth, mouthing two sides of a conversation.

After a few minutes, he rounded on her and sat on his haunches. 

“When the big man shot open our cages last night, I wasn’t really myself. Hojo had given me… something that made me go feral. All I could think about was the hunt. So when the cage door opened, I caught his scent and went after it.” 

His voice fell in shame. 

“I’ve never wanted to hurt someone that bad. I chased him. But he got away. And I still had all this anger. I wanted something to bleed.”

Aerith squatted down next to him.

He seemed so small and fragile while telling the story. She reached out and placed a comforting hand on Red’s shoulder. Sometimes, a gentle touch could do what words couldn’t. 

“And you four were there. And I wanted to hurt you instead.” He leaned into Aerith’s touch and let loose a ragged sigh. “But you reached out to me. And you gave me something.”

He fixed his good eye on hers. “A vision of things that hadn’t happened yet.” 

Aerith’s throat seized. She pulled her hand back in disbelief. "A vision of what?"

Red continued. “I don’t… know what it was now. We fought that thing last night, and by the time the battle haze cleared from my mind, I realized I didn’t know anymore. I just know it gave me peace” 

He paused. “But I do remember later that night. You pulled me aside after you opened that portal on the expressway. While Cloud and the others were checking their gear. You called me by my real name. Said you knew me.”

Aerith thought back to the last night. It was a nightmarish struggle against fate itself. The entire fight was a blur, she realized. She recalled waves of color and violence that she couldn’t make sense of. 

“I used your real name,” she repeated. 

“Yeah. I do remember that part.” Red looked out to the horizon. “You said I didn’t need to be afraid of you guys. And that everyone would love to meet the real Nanaki whenever I was ready to show them.” 

Red—no, Nanaki—curled his tail around his front paws. Sentinel-like, he faced the direction of the chopper’s thrum but continued his story. 

“We talked about the vision you showed me, but that part’s gone now too. I remember you said the visions were fragile. If we walked through that crossroad of destiny thing, we might lose them. You even said you’d probably forget this conversation.” He chuffed. “Guess you did.” 

Aerith tried to make sense of last night's swirl of colors and shadows. 

She knew the future. At least, she used to.

She could show the future to others. 

The future she revealed made people feel better about the events to come. 

So then- 

“They’re coming.” Nanaki’s voice dropped back into his battle-ready baritone. “I hear rotors. Running.” He coiled like a spring, turning his ear toward the source of the noise. “One set of footsteps. Heavy. The big man.” 

The chopper was close enough to kick up dust around the pair of them. Aerith squinted. In seconds, a chalky mist had replaced a clear day. The thrum of the copter blades became a roar. Great. Can’t see and can’t hear . She drew her staff from her waist pouch and unfolded it. She focused until magic crackled in her fingers. 

A burst of noise and heat. Gunfire. Pain blossomed along her shoulder. They could see her well enough to clip her, even in the haze. 

Aerith gritted her teeth and danced to the side, throwing down a ward that she could zip back to later. As she ran, she focused on the searing heat in her arm and channeled it through her staff. She let the heat-pain in her arm become a fireball, pointed in the direction of the bulletstorm. 

She let the invective fly. In the same instant, she pressed her hands together and pictured her arcane ward. She vanished with a shimmer and reappeared in the center of the glyph. She saw the fire spell glance harmlessly off the chopper’s armor. Useless , she thought.

Another stream of gunfire tore through the dust, ripping apart the empty air where she cast her spell. Good tracking skills, considering the visibility , she admitted to herself. 

She exhaled, raising her staff again. This time, she chanted a healing spell to staunch the bleeding from her wound. Before she could finish the invocation, a gravelly voice rang out. 

“Get down! Firing one off!”

Barret had caught up to them. She saw a flash of muzzle fire and threw herself to the ground, covering her head with her hands. Her staff rolled out of arm’s reach. Shit . Her shoulder cried out in pain, unhealed. 

She heard shells ring off the side of the chopper, its armor plating holding. Then she saw the telltale glow of Barret’s secondary fire charging. It came from the corner of her eye, and she turned away, curling into a ball. He must have circled around to avoid catching Aerith or Nanaki in friendly fire. 

She felt, rather than saw, the inferno spout from Barret’s weapon. A blast and heatwave sent her tumbling onto her side. She squeezed her eyes and mouth shut to avoid any shrapnel getting in. 

She heard a thundering crash and the sound of twisting metal. The chopper’s armor buckled under the force of the impact. She chanced a glimpse upward and saw the chopper for the first time. It careened through the air without a tail rotor. 

Careened straight toward her. 

Aerith scanned the ground for her staff in a panic. Nothing. No materia on her bracelet could help her. Helpless. Useless. That was why Cloud asked her to stay back.

She squeezed her eyes shut and braced for the impact. 

“Aerith!” Nanaki’s deep voice resounded behind her. She felt jaws clamp into her jacket and a hot breath on her neck. Before she realized what was happening, she jerked forward and to the side. Nanaki carried her out of the chopper’s trajectory in a mighty leap. 

With a deafening smash, the Shinra chopper hit the ground and flipped over, smoldering. Aerith, dazed, got to her feet and strained her ringing ears for any survivors’ voices. 

It was as quiet as a grave. 

The dust storm died down. Aerith rubbed the last of it out of her eyes and looked around. 

Barret stood a short distance away, grimly admiring his handiwork. He emptied the rest of his clip into the chopper’s now-exposed fuel tank, igniting it. He let out a grunt of satisfaction and marched towards Aerith and Nanaki. 

“You okay?” His voice was soft. Fatherly. Aerith nodded, certain that her voice would crack if she spoke aloud. 

Nanaki dipped his head towards the smoking wreck, deepening his voice again. “Fine work over there. Few men can say they took down a gunship single-handedly." He winced and sucked his teeth. “No offense intended.” 

"Yeah, I’m all kinds of special,” Barret muttered absently. He shaded his eyes with his good hand and surveyed the Wasteland. “Y’all see Tifa or Spikey out there?”

Aerith shook her head and also began looking for the missing duo. 

Nanaki opened his mouth and began sniffing for their scent on the wind. “From our vantage point, I heard some sort of rumbling. Something different than the chopper.” 

Barret scoffed. “Yeah. Shinra launched a pair of those one-wheeled contraptions outta their cargo bay. They peeled off and ran down our ‘decoys.’ I’d kinda hoped they could finish quick and help me get a bead on the bird. Now I’m just hoping they’re okay.” 

Aerith saw the tension in Barret’s jaw and the uncertainty in Nanaki’s flicking tail. Time to be the sunshine . “I bet they’re both fine,” she chirped. She set off in the direction she saw them running. “They probably dealt with the deathwheels and decided to leave the hard work to us.” She turned to Barret conspiratorially. “You know, stick it to the bosses.”

“The bosses?”

“Yeah, the bosses!” She saw her staff lying on the way and plucked it out of the dirt with cheerfulness she didn’t feel. “Because Tifa’s in the Avalanche cell you run and I pay Cloud to be my bodyguard.” 

“Uh… yeah!” Barret replied, catching on. “Damn rank and file never have management material.” He began to follow her, and Nanaki brought up the rear. They didn’t make it far at all before he called out again. “Hey, wait. Toss me your jacket first.”

Aerith swiveled and grinned. “Why, you think it’ll match your complexion better than your vest?” 

“Heh. No, you’ve got a tear in the sleeve and punctures in the back.” He produced a needle and thread from his vest pocket. “Can’t be looking scruffy for the underlings.” The tension in his jaw was gone. A little levity could go a long way.

“And you can fix it while walking? You’ve got quite the skill set." Aerith pulled off her jacket and handed it over, which he rested on his prosthetic. He threaded the needle with his teeth.

Barret chuckled. “What I’ve got is a four-year-old with one good dress and a habit of playing in piles of scrap iron.” He hummed to himself as Aerith resumed her search. 

Nanaki trotted ahead, matching her pace. She reached down and scratched behind his ears. “You saved me. I don’t know how I can repay you.” 

He kept his voice deep, but sprinkled some of the levity back in for her ears alone. “The next time some fiery deathball falls from the sky, you can save me. How’s that sound?” 

Aerith giggled. “It’s a deal.” She stumbled as a splitting pain wracked her head. It vanished just as quickly. What was that?

Neither of the other two seemed to notice, so she pressed on. "Hey, Nanaki?”

"Please- Red in front of the others.” He grimaced. “The others can learn in time, but for now I’d like to keep my affairs personal.” 

Aerith nodded apologetically. “Sure thing, Red.” He huffed in appreciation. “I don’t suppose you remembered anything else about our talk last night?”

He frowned in thought. “Yes, actually. I think the chaos just now might have knocked some reticence loose. You mentioned you might forget our conversation, but that everything would be fine. You said our adversary was destined to lose. That his fate, like all fates, was sealed the moment the Planet first drew breath.” 

Aerith breathed a sigh of relief. The tension she didn’t realize she carried melted off of her shoulders. Sephiroth was fated to lose. 

“Of course,” Red continued, “then you asked us to murder the avatar of fate itself.” He eyed her without turning his head up. “But I’m sure that was part of your plan too.” 

His head snapped to the right. “Ah. I’ve caught their scent. And there’s no blood.” He bounded off toward a pair of dark figures in the distance. 

“Finished!” Barret trumpeted. He tossed the restitched jacket to Aerith and jogged after Red. Even covered in dust, it looked better than new.

Aerith slid it back on, paused, and then headed towards the group. 

She told Nanaki that Sephiroth was destined to lose. 

So why would she have wanted to risk that and challenge fate?

Chapter Text

Do I get a say in all this?

The evening breeze blew through the Grasslands, and the heat of the day broke. Aerith turned into it, letting the smell of wildflowers and sunsets soothe her tired body. 

Five days had passed since Shinra left the town of Kalm. Their peacekeepers all but tore the place apart to find Avalanche. 

To find Aerith and her friends. 

She let the wind catch her arm and she spun, relishing the gentle current on her wrists, her neck, her face. Aerith didn’t care who saw her dallying pirouette. The party was heading back to town after almost a week of camping in the wilderness. The promise of a hot shower and a real bed could do a lot to raise a girl’s spirits.

The five of them had evaded contact with Shinra ever since the battle with the chopper. After a night in Kalm, they avoided major settlements. Instead, they took odd jobs on farms and gathered intelligence for Chadley. 

The work paid dividends. They began to fight as a team, and their instincts in battle sharpened. They handed that combat telemetry over to Chadley, who gave them materia as payment.

The Shinra android also kept tabs on the company’s comms. He insisted they could have gone back to Kalm earlier, but Barret insisted on caution. There were plenty of ways to make money in the wilderness. Plus, every day outside of civilization was a day invisible to Company informants.

Still, Barret had to relent sooner or later. Cloud maintained that the most lucrative freelance work was back in Kalm. Aerith argued that they’d need more supplies before braving the swamps toward Junon. Tifa pointed out that they could hunt for Avalanche dead drops. Red finally won Barret over by threatening to bite him if he had to spend one more night outdoors. 

The sun sank below the treeline, and the breeze stilled. The group made their way into town, looking for any signs of surveillance. They found none. Relieved, Cloud checked them into a small establishment nestled on a twisting side street.

Tifa and Aerith found their room and dropped their gear onto the floor. Tifa darted to the ensuite, transfixed by the shower and collection of soaps on the shelf. 

“Hey, you don’t mind if I go first, do you?” Tifa already stood in the bathroom, but at least she had the courtesy to ask. Her eyes darted between Aerith and the bathtub like a junkie spotting her next fix. 

That girl and her showers , Aerith wondered. Still, she grinned and nodded her head. “Be my guest. I saw a garden on the rooftop, and I want to check it out anyway.” She gave the fighter a wave and stepped out of the room for more privacy. 

As she meandered down the hallway, Aerith reflected on her travels with Tifa. They’d formed a fast bond. A sister-like connection sparked almost at once. Since that first night in Wall Market, Tifa had been a constant source of delight to Aerith. 

They bantered like lifelong friends. Aerith found herself confiding in her without restraint. Her childhood in Shinra’s labs, her time in the slums, and even her secret habit of writing poems and songs. She poured her life, her stories, and her songs into their nighttime talks, and Tifa drank them up with gusto. 

Most nights, Tifa would return the favor. She explained her lifelong pursuit of martial arts and the peace it brought her. She shared the trauma of Sephiroth’s attack, her recovery, and her time in the slums working off medical debt. Tifa needed a friend too, and Aerith was happy to be one. 

Humming to herself, Aerith climbed the inn’s stairs and made it out onto its flat roof. Her suspicions from the street were correct. Planters that burst with flowers of all colors and sizes covered the roof. She gasped in delight and began fawning over them. 

She saw lilacs, carnations, and hydrangeas in hanging baskets. Peonies and tulips burst out of pots on the floor. Ivy and wisteria crept over the balcony and down the side of the building. A rose bush—an actual, living rose bush—dominated the center of the space. 

Aerith yelped with glee and knelt to examine the blooms. Even in the fading evening light, the garden dazzled her. She took a deep breath and let the scents mingle on her palate. 

She imagined dancing in endless fields of color, losing herself in the vision. She wasn’t sure how long she sat, lost in her own world, but she reveled in the fantasy. 

She didn’t hear the door open behind her, but she did hear it close with a click. Aerith shot up, startled. 

“Oh. Didn’t mean to disturb you.” Cloud’s voice pulled her back into reality. “Wasn’t sure what was up here.” 

Aerith peered at him, unsure if he meant to say more. He still wore his sword, backpack, and armor, though he had wiped the road grime off his face.

He tightened his lips and glanced around the rooftop instead of meeting her gaze. 

Cicadas hummed in the distance, and water burbled in the canal below. 

He took a halting step forward. Pausing as if to speak, but closed his mouth and crossed his arms.

The streetlights flickered and began to hum as they turned on for the night. 

Aerith considered the mercenary. He had kept his distance since their first flight out of Kalm. She tried reaching out over the next few days—when they hiked, when they camped, and even during jobs. He offered terse but polite replies each time. 

She tilted her head and tried to catch his eye, smiling. “Gil for your thoughts?” He hadn’t turned to go back downstairs. Something was on his mind. 

“Hmm.” He turned to the garden’s railing, studying the town below. He cleared his throat. Then he hesitated. Faltered. 

“Okay, maybe I can start,” she ventured. “How’s… your room looking tonight?”

“Barret’s already asleep. He snores like a bulldozer. And Red’s tail makes the room too hot.” Cloud pointed at his gear bag. “Wondered if I could take my bedroll up here for the night.” 

“You finally get a roof over your head, and you opt for more camping?”

“Can actually get some sleep that way.” 

She didn’t have a retort for that, so she turned to the townscape too.

The sounds of nighttime settled between them again. 

“You know, normally conversation partners take turns asking questions.” Aerith injected a little levity into her tone, trying to coax out her onetime bodyguard. 

“Hmm.”

“Any question! I’m an open book.” She spread her arms and tossed her head back with flair. 

Cloud ran his fingers through his hair, thinking.

His moment of consideration stretched into minutes. A few times he started to speak, but he never formed a complete word.

Aerith watched him struggle, and saw when he made his decision.

He straightened and looked right at her. His eyes shimmered at night, two chips of smoldering ice. A sign of the Mako treatments.

“Why did you call the flowers at your house your babies?”

Aerith blinked. That wasn’t a question she expected.

“Come again?”

“The day you found me at the church. We did some gigs around Sector Five. Then you took me to your house for dinner.” 

He looked away, his brow furrowed. “But first you showed me that flower bed up on the hill. The one with all the yellow lilies. You said the flowers talked to you.” He had closed his eyes, focusing on the memory. “You called them your babies.” 

Bemused, she walked over to the section of the railing where Cloud stood. “Yeah, I guess I did. They mean a lot to me. Meant a lot to me, I guess.”

She picked at the dirt that still clung under her fingernails. “I watered them every day, weeded them, and made sure they had plenty of sunlight. Most days I talked to them. Even sang to them some times.” 

As Aerith approached him, Cloud crossed his arms again, folding inward on himself. “But you kill them.” 

She scoffed. “I do not! I’ll have you know I’m the only person who can keep flowers alive in the slums.” 

He shook his head. “You pick them. You put a bunch in your basket to give to the Leaf House. Or you sell them topside.” 

He stroked the petals of a nearby gardenia so delicately that they hardly moved. “You give them so much attention, and they flourish under your care. But they have to die.”

Her jaw tightened. 

“Everything dies, Cloud.”

“But shouldn’t you try to keep things alive as long as possible?” 

She thought back to her childhood in Hojo's lab.

“Some lives aren’t worth prolonging,” she replied softly. “The flowers could stay in my house until they withered and fell, but who would see them then?”

“I don’t follow.” 

“When I pick them, I share their beauty. They brighten people’s lives before they die.” 

She plucked the gardenia Cloud had caressed and brought it up to her nose, relishing its clean scent. It was pale like moonlight, with delicate, almost fragile petals. 

“It’s better to die making the world a better place than to hide away in a gutter.” 

Cloud thumbed the bare branch that Aerith had picked. 

“That’s bullshit,” he whispered. 

“Excuse me?”

Cloud faced her. His hands tightened around the planter, and he stared straight into her eyes. “I said that’s bullshit. The kind of crock Shinra fed us in Basic.”

The planter Cloud began to crack as his fingers tightened. “It’s such an honor to die for the Company. Glory awaits the people who sacrifice everything.” He barked a hollow laugh.

“What they don’t tell you," he continued breathlessly, “is what happens to the people that keep on living. Squadmates drink in bars alone now. Mothers never see their sons come home. Sweethearts lose their chance at starting a family.”

Aerith didn’t back down from Cloud’s glare. “There’s a difference between dying for a cause and being sent off to die.”

“Depends on if you’re the flower or the one that picks it,” he responded. He gripped the planter in his hands so hard that the veins in his arms were visible. “I’m sure Shinra’s leadership feels the exact same way you do.” 

She reddened. “That was uncalled for.” 

“So is romanticizing sacrifice.” 

“I’m not romanticizing anything!” Aerith hated raising her voice. Especially when they were in public trying to keep a low profile. She took a deep breath and broke eye contact, storming over to the other corner of the garden.

“What if all a flower wanted was a long life in a garden?” Cloud asked quietly. “Even if it were in the slums?” 

“What if a flower spent twenty-two years in the slums and dreamed of getting out every single day?” Aerith retorted. 

“Then it should be able to do that. But it shouldn’t be so eager to die.” 

“Everything dies, Cloud.” 

SNAP.

The planter Cloud had been gripping fractured in his hands. Soil trickled onto his boots. 

“I wish you wouldn’t keep saying that.” He stared blankly into the town, shards of pottery in his hands. “Makes me think you want it to happen.” He dropped the shards of the broken planter onto the ground. “Makes me think you know something we don’t.” 

She visited his dreams. Warned him. Tried to create distance. 

She gave Nanaki a portent that he needed to see.

She breached the portal on the overpass.

She fought the Whispers. Felt it drain away. Only fragments now.

stonewallsprayersbloodtearsdeathdrowninglifeflowerssalvationdamnationrainfallinginthechurch-

Aerith gasped. Fell to her knees. 

In an instant, Cloud was beside her. Concern painted his face. He reached out to steady her, but she held out an arm in protest. 

She got to her feet, shaking. 

“I don’t know anything you don’t,” she admitted wearily. “I promise.” 

“Then…” Cloud stayed on the ground, staring. “Then why did you give me that warning?” Then he stood up and fixated on her. He was still close. She could feel his breath on her skin. 

“That night. Before I came for you. You visited me. I didn’t just dream about meeting you in the flowerbed.” 

His last sentence wasn’t a question, but she answered anyway. 

“No.”

“No what?”

“You didn’t dream it.”

Whatever happens, you can’t fall in love with me.

Even if you think you have… it’s not real . 

Aerith reached for Cloud’s face, and he didn’t stop her. She stroked his cheek gently. He didn’t look away. 

“You didn’t dream it,” she repeated. Even with the gaps the Whispers made in her mind, she remembered needing to reach out to him that night. 

“Then tell me why you came. And why you said what you said.” 

Aerith sighed. “I don’t know, Cloud.” She saw his expression harden, and she pulled her hand back. “I mean it. Maybe I knew at some point. But that night—the escape, the Arbiter, the Whispers—it took a lot out of me.” 

She looked down at her hands. She had crushed the little gardenia without realizing it. “I know that I didn’t want anyone to get hurt for my sake. You least of all.” 

“Do I get a say in all this?” he asked that same question the night before her rescue. “Or do you decide what’s best for me? Like I’m one of your flowers?” The accusation stung. 

He continued. "I've tried to stay away, you know. Keep my distance." His shoulders slumped. "It's been hard. I want to know if I get a say."

No, you don’t, she wanted to say. It’ll probably happen whether you want it to or not . 

“Of course you have a say.” 

“Even if it’s not real?” 

That stung too. 

“I… didn’t want to see you get hurt. How bad can something hurt if it’s not real?”

“Only one way to find out.” 

She didn't have an answer to that.

Cloud reached for the crushed flower in her hands and cradled it in his palm. He used his thumbs to smooth its wrinkled petals. It was beyond saving, but he worked anyway. 

Aerith watched him coax each frond into its original position. Creases like lines in old parchment marred each one. She saw him pinch the flower by its base and knew that if he let go, it would disintegrate completely. As long as it stayed in his hand, it would remain intact.

Without a word, he walked away from Aerith. He turned his attention to the planter he had crushed during their argument. He picked up shards of pottery with his free hand and placed them in his pocket, where no one could step on them. 

He examined the potting soil spilling out of the damaged urn. He dug at it with careful fingers, freeing the small gardenia shrub’s roots from the dirt. “Cloud, wait.” Aerith crossed the garden and lifted his hand out of the soil. Her touch lingered, and he hesitated to pull free from her grasp. 

“Gardenia shrubs have delicate root balls. Better to use both hands.” She worked with a practiced hand, freeing the root network one part at a time. “They like acidic soil, so you can’t put it anywhere.” 

She spotted a lonely azalea plant in an oversized pot.

“This should do.” She placed the gardenia on its side and began working in a space for it. Cloud joined her, and after some direction, he began digging with his free hand too. 

“It’s weird that the little pink one is in such a big planter by itself,” Cloud observed. 

“Maybe the gardener expected the azalea plant ,” she clarified kindly, “to grow into it.”

“Or maybe it was always meant for two plants.” He picked up the gardenia and handed it to her. 

Aerith placed the plant in its new pot and gently smoothed it in, trying not to disturb the roots too much. She stepped back and admired her handiwork. 

The soft pinks and pale whites of the flowers blended like the first rays of dawnlight. The lonely azalea didn’t seem so overpowered by the size of the pot anymore. The gardenia balanced the arrangement. The pair became a focal point of the garden rather than an afterthought.

Cloud stood back and regarded the plants alongside her. “May you have a long, happy life up here.” The tiniest ghost of a smirk tugged his mouth upwards. “May it be boring and unplucked.”

Aerith glowered at him out of the corner of her eye, but couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “Okay, SOLDIER boy, you made your point.” She made her way toward the staircase back down. 

“Enjoy your bedroll. I’m going to take advantage of a dry roof and running water while I can.”

Cloud began unpacking his camping gear. As Aerith opened the door, she heard a mumbled “Hey.” 

She looked back at Cloud’s glowing eyes, his earnest face, and his burning ears. 

“I’m glad I get a say in this,” he muttered finally. 

Aerith smiled. “Me too, Cloud. Have a good night.”

“You too.”

***

Aerith woke up the next morning after a night of racing thoughts. In Midgar, why had she been so certain that something awful would happen? She wondered if there was a way to bridge the gulf that had opened between her and Cloud. 

The party split up to run errands in town. Tifa bought supplies, Barret restocked weapons and ammo, and Aerith found leads for a few gigs. Cloud took Red to Maghnata to inscribe their folios. 

As it happened, Aerith’s client wanted to meet in a café close to the bookstore. She listened to the job’s details while watching Cloud scramble to heft five enormous tomes- the narrow shop counter couldn't hold them all. She had a great vantage point to watch their struggle. The books began to wobble, and Red leapt to stabilize them with his bulky paws. 

All five volumes collapsed onto the floor. Loose pages scattered around the store. 

Aerith saw Cloud pluck his book from the ground. He surreptitiously opened it to an unmarked page in the middle. From her seat, Aerith saw him check the page, close it, and breathe a sigh of relief.

Pressed into his folio were a handful of loose gardenia petals.

Chapter Text

Choose your Battles

Amid the Lifestream

The Lifestream flowed through the Grasslands around Kalm, and Aerith flowed with it.

She relived her weeks there, savoring the blossoming friendships between her and the others: Cloud, Barret, Tifa, and Nanaki couldn’t help but grow closer together as they traveled together.

She fixated on her transition from fear to optimism. She recalled the slow shift from hating the open, plateless sky to reveling in it. The sky was freedom. The magnificent aurora-like bands that criss crossed it captivated her. 

She had never learned about them growing up, and never saw them until leaving Midgar. The others seemed to take the prismatic ribbons for granted. They never commented on them.

Reliving their journey through the tranquil wilderness invigorated her spirit in the Lifestream. Small details came back to her bit by bit. 

She remembered the first time Barret took over cooking duty at camp. He made a dinner so spicy that no one else could eat it. When Cloud asked who taught him how to cook, Barret opened up for the first time about his life in Corel. His love for his father’s cooking. 

She remembered Nanaki’s habit of pointing out wildflowers. He asked her in secret for the name of each blossom. He never used his deep voice when asking about flowers. 

She remembered Tifa’s conditioning lessons each morning. Together, they flowed through Zangan’s martial forms. Aerith knew she would never be a fistfighter. Thanks to Tifa, she at least grew strong enough to carry her own gear and cover the same miles that the others did. 

And she remembered the fleeting feeling of independence from destiny. It felt like a weight off her shoulders that she couldn’t explain to herself. The first morning in Kalm, she had asked Cloud to tour the city’s clock tower with her. It was a date that had no doubt confused him after their rendezvous in Elmyra’s garden. 

Her spirit lingered over their rooftop argument. She realized that after that night, Cloud had stopped trying to play the aloof SOLDIER around her. He actually joked back at her jabs. At least, he did the few times he picked up on them. 

The Lifestream flowed through the Grasslands around Kalm, and Aerith separated from it.

She manifested her body and drifted through the Planet as if it were water. She pictured herself rolling onto her back and spreading her arms and legs as if she were floating. It was a posture she had begun to take while reflecting on memories she regained. The posture slowed her mind down and made her meditate. 

She focused on reassembling her memories in the right order. She'd fill in gaps and glean what insights she could from them. 

Her mother appeared above her with a smile. 

Ifalna duplicated Aerith's posture, suspended motionless in the air above. The Lifestream had no sense of space or gravity. But her orientation still alarmed Aerith. It looked like Ifalna was about to fall on top of her. 

“Wagh!” 

With a cry, Aerith fell out of her floating position. She adjusted her conceptualization of “down.” Ifalna still faced her, but now it felt as if the two women were standing on a floor, making eye contact. 

“Petal, have to expect my visits by now.” Ifalna floated around Aerith, wrapping her in another full-armed embrace. 

“Expecting your visits. Watching you pop into existence an inch from my face. Two different things,” Aerith chirped. She leaned into her mother’s hug and rested her head on her mother’s shoulder. Seventeen years apart meant a lot of making up for lost hugs. 

“A fair distinction,” Ifalna conceded. “It’s good to see you in such high spirits. Have your meditations gone well?”

Aerith nodded. “I started as close to Midgar as I could. The first few weeks of our journey feel more… solid now. The memories have cemented themselves in my mind."

“And have you learned anything? Realized anything?” Ifalna always spoke in a gentle tone when helping Aerith recollect herself. Aerith wondered if her mother feared pushing too hard. Too hard might break her, sending her back to the black-glass enclosure of oblivion she had started in. 

“I have. I think it’s hard to organize my memories because… there are two sets of them.” Aerith still reeled at the implication. 

“First, there’s what I did over the past few months. I can trace those memories by finding my path in the Lifestream. I relive them, and they become part of me again.”

“And the second?” Her mother loosened her hug. She began running her fingers through the emerald strands of the Lifestream. 

Aerith considered how to articulate her latest discovery. “The second is… also me. I think.” She focused on a memory from the second set, drawing it to the surface of her mind. It was like pulling on a shadow covered in soap. 

Aerith's voice dropped to a whisper as she spoke of the past. “There’s a lot less detail in them. But I get echoes of them sometimes. Meeting different people in the same place. Fighting different monsters. Little flashes sometimes.”

“Can you find that strand of yourself in the Lifestream?” Ifalna asked. “Maybe the Planet sees you as a different thread.”

Aerith shook her head. “No, I tried that. The echoes are up here—" she tapped her forehead— “but they're hard to get to.” 

She brought her hands together in prayer. She did that often, even when she didn't have anything to pray for. It helped her think. “The echo-memories become clearer when I focus on how I felt in a particular place instead of what I did .”

“And how did you feel during the first few weeks of your journey?” Ifalna folded her hands in front of her as she listened.

“Exhilarated,” Aerith whispered. “I loved seeing so much nature. Traveling and meeting people—helping them with their problems—it felt so right .” Her spirit soared at the memories. “I learned so much about the others. And the weight on my chest that had been there since…” her voice cracked. “Since you… passed… started to fall away.”

Ifalna’s face fell, but she stayed silent, listening. 

“I think even if the Arbiter took my memories of the future, some part of me still expected to die for the Planet. The... first 'me,' maybe. But another part of me felt like things could be different.” 

“You let yourself hope,” Ifalna ventured. 

“Yeah. Some part of me envisioned the rest of my life with my friends. It could be a long life. So I opened up to each of them. More than the first me did, anyway.”

You opened up to Cloud the first time , the ugly voice in her head accused. Look where that got the two of you . 

Aerith crushed the thought before it could show on her face. She couldn’t think about that now. 

“We traveled through some old mines. Made our way into Junon. But it’s hard to follow myself there.” Aerith gestured to the thread of her own life. It coursed through the Planet, but it became thin and ragged on the other side of the mines. 

“The reactor,” Ifalna hissed. An open sore on the side of Gaia, pulling the Lifestream’s essence into itself. As she considered Junon, her physical form began to shimmer and fade. She pulled back in a rush. 

“Mom?”

Ifalna smiled, but there was a weariness in her face. “The reactors take the Lifestream itself and turn it into Mako. It’s hard to resist their pull, especially when your sense of self already cries to rejoin the Oneness.”

Aerith clutched her mother and receded from Junon. Ifalna solidified, and the wanness around her eyes dissolved. 

“Petal, you know what you must do. I will await you on the other side, but you can’t be afraid to continue your journey.” 

Aerith tightened her jaw. She wanted to disagree, but Ifalna was right. She needed to know the whole story. Both whole stories, if she could. 

Ifalna began to dissipate into the Lifestream. “I will gather my strength, Petal, and see you soon. Relatively speaking, of course.” 

She winked and was gone. Her voice lingered a moment longer. “I fear that your memories may be more disjointed in places where reactors harvest us. You must focus, dear one.” 

Ifalna’s presence dwindled until Aerith sensed only the chorus of all souls around her. She returned to Junon and began to gather fragments of her mind…

Somewhere in the Junon Mountains

FLASH

…Thin air. Barret warned that breathing might be harder at higher altitudes…

FLASH

…Steep hills. Climbing terrain wore out her legs, and she collapsed into her bedroll every night…

FLASH

…Sheer cliffs. Dark chocobos. Nanaki fell off once. They all laughed…

Focus!

Junon came to her in fits and starts. The world, her memories, felt ragged here. Thin and frayed. The dreadful maw in the ocean—the underwater reactor that fed Junon—tugged at her soul. 

Focus!

She shouted at herself. Forced strength into her mind. Aerith drew on the insights from Kalm and allowed them to fortify her. 

“I loved to travel!” The ground solidified under her feet. 

“I helped people!” The sky stopped spinning above her. 

“I bonded with the others!” The pale colors of the world condensed into something real. Something that felt real, at least. 

I need an anchor , Aerith thought. A starting point . 

“The camp!” That’ll do . 

The world snapped into focus. She knew when and where she was. 

The first night in Junon. They had emerged from the Mythril mine, weary and sore from their fight with the Turks. They needed to rest. 

Like always, Cloud scouted ahead. His Mako enhancements meant he didn’t tire the same way as the rest of them. He set off on a jog through the steep hills that rolled in every direction beyond the mine’s exit. 

Barret collapsed, dumping his pack beside him. Tifa followed suit with a sigh of exhaustion. Nanaki, doing his best wizened warrior act, prowled over to a nearby hilltop to watch for monsters. 

Despite her fatigue, Aerith felt the need to keep the party’s cheer up. She stretched her arms out and twirled over to her seated friends. 

“You know it’s funny. You’d think after a lifetime in Midgar I’d get used to stale air. But all I could think of in the mine was ‘boy, I miss clean breathing.'"

Tifa laughed and looked up from her seat. “I felt the same way. The mine reminded me of crawling around the tunnels under the slums. We used them a lot between Avalanche missions.”

“Being underground builds character,” Barret grumbled. “Y’all need to appreciate opportunities to grow and get stronger. Savor it!” 

Tifa cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? Is that why you were the first one to jog outside when we saw the exit tunnel?” She winked at Aerith. “You even beat Cloud, and he hates closed-in spaces.” 

Barret didn’t reply, opting instead to grouse into a field ration with a heightened air of dignity. 

“Hey,” Aerith started. “How much do you wanna bet Cloud found a camping spot near a Chocobo Stop?” 

Tifa and Barret both snorted. The first few times they thought it was a coincidence. After the fourth night camping in the Grasslands, they had to remark on it. He insisted on seeking out the little blue shelters when they had to camp away from a town. 

Tifa pushed the group to understand why. Cloud carried the tent, which meant he had to set it up each night. He always jogged ahead to find a spot and set up alone. Everyone else had wondered about his strange habit. But asking him outright got his usual icy response.

“SOLDIER thing. I’m faster on my own,” he replied when they’d asked. 

So Tifa tailed him one night and reported back to the others in disbelief. 

It turned out Cloud had no idea how to set up a tent. 

He struggled with the canvas and rigging, swearing to himself, until he could rig up a structure. The posts of the Chocobo stop were sturdy enough to cover his work. He’d cover the shoddy knots with his pack and spare canvas, then jog back to the group to say he’d found a spot. 

No one had worked up the nerve to tell Cloud of their discovery, so it had become an inside joke between the other four. If they saw a Chocobo stop during their travels, they’d point it out and marvel at the quality of its construction. If Cloud noticed, he never let on. 

The three humans chatted about camp duty for the night until Cloud returned. He jogged back and pointed his thumb to the southwest. “Found a spot with good sightlines. Should make the watch tonight easier.” 

Barret hummed sagely. “Right. Sightlines. Most important thing to look for when picking a campsite.” 

“Some might say the only thing you should look for when picking a site,” Tifa chimed in. 

Aerith had to cover her mouth as she picked herself up off the ground. She started walking in the direction Cloud pointed, saluting him and marching on.

After a short hike, they found a secluded spot with a fire pit dug out. True to form, a rickety lean-to fought for its life against a cobalt Chocobo stop. Cloud’s gear hitched onto the tent’s anchor points. 

“I’ll get started on the fire,” Nanaki growled. “I’ll need help with the cooking, though.” 

Aerith hopped over, already unloading her supplies.

Barret ambled around the perimeter of the campsite before addressing Tifa. “Guess that leaves one of us for watch duty.” He eyed her. “Flip you for it?”

Tifa shook her head. “No, I’ll take it tonight. You and Red had to fight that rock thing in the mine. Get your rest.” 

Barret grunted and sat near the fire. He inspected his prosthetic for any maintenance work. 

Dinner passed without incident. Nanaki went off to hunt, and the others pooled what they knew about the Junon region with each other. Not much, as it turned out. 

“We should find Chadley,” Cloud offered. “First thing tomorrow, I’ll ping him and get a punch list for intel.” 

The other three nodded. “Forewarned is forearmed!” Aerith and Tifa cheered in near perfect unison. 

“More lessons from the ground floor?” Cloud deadpanned. 

“You know it!” 

“Which lesson teaches you how to talk at the same time?” 

“Probably the same one that says not to be such a sourpuss,” Aerith teased. She softened her gaze. “Maybe you just need to get some rest. I’ll clean up dinner if you want to turn in early.” 

Cloud blinked in appreciation. He plodded off to bed, the day’s fatigue finally seeming to affect him.

“I’m gonna turn in too,” Barret yawned. “I’ll make it up to y’all tomorrow night—I'll cook and clean. Old family recipe. Not spicy. You’ll love it.” He lumbered into the tent and collapsed with a thud. 

Aerith began cleaning. Tifa dusted her hands and started pacing around the campsite. She didn’t settle into a watch position, but strode back and forth with short, quick footsteps. Her fingers drummed against her thighs as she walked. 

Tifa was nervous.  

"Hey, Aerith?” She faltered at the start. 

“Hm?”

“Would you mind posting up with me for a bit?” Tifa hesitated. “Wanna talk to you about something.”

“Sure!” Aerith kept her voice bright, as much to put her friend at ease as to mask her own apprehension.

The two of them had shared a few deep discussions since the Plate fell over sector seven. Tifa had never seemed anxious to start a conversation before. 

Aerith finished the last of the washing. She stoked the campfire, appreciating its warmth in the chilly mountain air. After a few minutes, she stood and joined Tifa on lookout. 

“What’s on your mind?” Aerith maintained what she hoped was an approachable tone. In any way that mattered, Tifa was the first friend Aerith had. She hated the idea of putting her on edge. 

Tifa took a deep breath, closing her eyes and planting her feet. She had once explained to Aerith that it was a centering exercise to do before a hard fight. Something her old master had taught her. 

“I want to talk to you about something,” she repeated. “Something that’s been wearing on us for a few weeks now.” 

Aerith lit a lantern from the camp set and placed it on the ground between them, dispelling some of the darkness. “I’m an open book,” she quipped.

Tifa smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You always are.” She took Aerith’s hand, and Aerith felt the contrast between them. There was a strength in Tifa’s grip, gentle as it was, and calluses covered her hand. Aerith’s own hand felt soft and delicate in her grip. Weak.

Ah, Aerith realized. It was funny how a single gesture could prime someone for the words to come. 

“I’ve been talking with B and Cloud,” Tifa began. “And I need to start by saying we are so, so glad to have you with us. And we want you to stay with us. You’ve helped us find lifesprings and spirit intel, and you’ve taught us so much about magic and materia.” 

Tifa’s hand over Aerith’s was gentle. Comforting. “And more than that, you’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I can’t imagine going on this journey without you.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ coming,” Aerith interjected. She tried to keep a smile on her face. Tried to keep the levity in her voice even as her heart sank. 

Tifa nodded compassionately. “But. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. And you have so many strengths. But fighting may not be one of them.” 

Tifa’s words hung in the air, and Aerith felt the heat of shame rising in her cheeks. She didn’t say anything, so Tifa continued. 

“I’ve studied under Zangan most of my life. Cloud was in SOLDIER. Red’s been hunting for 40 years. And Barret’s led more live-fire missions than anyone else in Avalanche. You’re an amazing spellcaster, Aerith. But you haven’t been in that many fights. And it feels like the further we get from Midgar, the stronger the monsters become.” 

“So I can stay at a distance and cast spells, like we’ve been doing all along,” Aerith suggested. She couldn’t stop her voice from shaking. Tifa, as kindly as possible, was confirming an insecurity in Aerith. One that had festered since their escape from Shinra tower. 

Useless. 

Dead weight. 

Baggage.

“But that hasn’t always worked,” Tifa insisted. “When the Shinra chopper attacked, Barret couldn’t get a bead on it because it spotted you and pursued. When the Turks attacked us in the mine, they ignored me and Cloud to try and shut you down first.” 

Tifa winced, but she didn’t mince her words. “That means that sometimes the rest of us can’t focus on fighting and protecting ourselves. Because we're also keeping an eye out for you.” 

Burden. 

Strain. 

Hindrance.

"We thought, if we could tell a fight was coming, three of us would take point. The fourth would take you to safety until we got an all-clear." Tifa finished in a rush, unhappy to give bad news. 

Aerith blinked back tears she thought would be too hard to see in the dark. She steadied herself, but couldn’t get the tremble out of her voice. “And the other three think the same thing?” 

“Cloud suggested it,” Tifa confirmed. 

Aerith felt as if someone had dumped ice water over her. 

Cloud suggested it.

“It’s nice of you to worry about me, but I think I can handle myself. I fought plenty well in Midgar, you know.” Aerith tried to project a confidence she didn’t feel. “I helped Cloud hunt monsters in Sector Five. We fought bandits under the expressway on the way to Sector Six that night, too.”

Tifa smiled. “Yeah, Cloud told me about that.”

“And did he tell you about the Colosseum at Wall Market? We won the whole tournament. Plus an extra fight!” Aerith thought back to the enormous, house-shaped mech that Corneo had unleashed.

She loved thinking of the memory of that night, battling alongside him. “In fact, the Hell House even sucked Cloud up. I had to let loose some pretty spectacular magic to get him back,” Aerith finished proudly. 

Tifa frowned and shook her head slowly. “That’s not how Cloud tells it.” She squeezed Aerith’s hand. “He said the mech caught you out of position. He jumped between you and the house and got pulled in.”

“SOLDIER bravado,” Aerith tried to joke. 

“I’d think so too, but the same thing happened to me when we fought Corneo’s monster.” Tifa gazed into the distance, recalling the fight. “That thing lunged at you, and I dove in to intercept.” She pointed at a scar along her forearm. “Even after healing, it got me pretty good.” 

Aerith wavered as she considered their time in the city together in a new light. They had fought together, hadn’t they? Partners.

Was it really together, though? The ugly voice in her head returned. Did you think you were partners that whole time?

How had the fights in Midgar played out? Were Aerith and Cloud equals, taking on the worst that the city had together? 

Or did a first-class SOLDIER and a near-superhuman martial artist carve their way through monsters and thugs? Threats that never could have hurt them anyway?

You stupid girl. Aerith let the thoughts wash over her. You thought that because you could fling a few fireworks out of a walking stick, you could fight?

Tifa still held Aerith’s hand between her own. She gave it a soft squeeze. “We want you with us. But we want you to be safe, too.” She took a breath. “None of us would ever stop blaming ourselves if something bad happened to you.”

Aerith played her last card. “But what about the Arbiter? And the Whispers? I fought there, too.”

I can fight. I can learn. Let me practice. I can prove it to you. Aerith felt her objections dissolve into ash on her tongue. How could a flower girl from the slums keep up with professionals? 

“We were all out of our depth in that fight, Aerith. The more I think about it, the more I realize we only won because Sephiroth—or that piece of Sephiroth—wanted us to win.” 

Tifa reached for Aerith’s other hand. “It’s only gotten harder since we left the city. And none of us wants to see you get hurt. But we can’t divide our attention between offense and defense.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “You can’t… be a fighter and need a… bodyguard.” 

Aerith’s shoulders slumped, and her hands fell from Tifa’s. 

She couldn’t put the others at risk by dividing their attention in a fight. Everything Tifa said was true. The kindness in her words didn’t make it hurt any less. 

Don’t make it any harder on them . 

Aerith rubbed her hands together against the cold and gave Tifa a fragile smile. “Thank you for being the one to tell me. I don’t think any of the boys would have been so… diplomatic about it.” 

She took Tifa’s hand back. 

“I don’t want to put anyone in danger. If this is best, I’ll stay back.” Tifa’s posture softened. The relief on her face was plain in the lantern light. 

Did she expect me to push back more? A wry thought bubbled through her mind. Am I so bad at fighting that I can’t even argue properly?

“But!” Aerith continued. She put the smile back on her face and pulled her bright voice back out. She hated thinking Tifa—or anyone for that matter—was uncomfortable around her. 

“But?” Tifa asked.

“You have to let me help in other ways. I’m gonna earn my keep one way or another.”

“You absolutely will,” Tifa reassured. 

“Maybe by keeping the night watch company!”

Tifa chuckled. “Maybe so.”

Aerith sat on a nearby log and tried to crush her awful sense of uselessness down. After a moment, Tifa joined her. They looked out into the darkness together. “Anything you want to talk about?” Tifa injected false cheer into her voice, but Aerith appreciated the effort.

She wracked her brain for something to change the subject. To sweep out the heavy feeling between them.

“Well, we never got to plan our topside shopping trip,” Aerith acknowledged. “If we have some time in Junon, we should try to do one there!”

Tifa’s eyes sparkled. 

“Definitely. What would you buy first?”

The two of them continued their talk into the night.

Chapter Text

Something Worth Fighting For

Days turned into weeks as the party made its way across Junon's jagged landscape. Most nights, Aerith collapsed as soon as Cloud found a campsite. The region’s thin air and steep terrain exhausted her. 

Aerith couldn’t fathom how the others could trek the same distance as her and still fight every day. The crumbling roads to Junon City teemed with monsters, and Chadley's intel list made them crisscross the region. Fighting became inevitable.

The party settled into a new rhythm for those fights. First, find a secluded spot to drop packs and gear. Second, ask Aerith to guard the gear. Third, wait for one of the others to complain about low ammo, a torn claw, or sore muscles. That one would stay behind with the dead weight and wait for the other three to clear out the threat. 

They passed Aerith around in roughly equal shifts. She understood the logic that Tifa had laid out that first night. Even so, it hurt to see her friends throw themselves into harm’s way without her. 

To fight the feeling of uselessness, she busied herself in other ways. She practiced with materia every night, and soon she could heal wounds that no one else could manage. At every campsite, she set up protective wards that gave everyone more peace of mind. Using a field guide, she began foraging for herbs that she could transmute into medicine. 

Most importantly, she kept a smile on her face. Morale became critical to manage. Aerith was naturally an optimistic person, and she learned the importance of sharing an upbeat attitude.

Despite her relegation, she kindled that upbeat attitude. She didn’t take her combat demotion to heart. In fact, the other four’s attempts to keep her safe were some of the kindest things anyone had ever done for her. The party needed levity at the end of each day. They needed to connect. 

So every night, Aerith would coax out a story from one of them. She loved hearing about the outside world. The so-called normal things they took for granted. Childhood games, hobbies and interests, friends and family. So alien to Aerith, but so fascinating to learn about.

For her part, she talked about the Shinra lab, Sector 5, and her time with Elmyra. They learned about each others’ likes and dislikes. They felt like close friends, not just traveling companions.

Weeks passed this way.

As they neared the end of Chadley’s intel list, Aerith had never felt stronger. Her weeks in the mountains had made her legs hardier. Her fingers practically crackled with magic after all her practice with the materia. She could carry her share of gear and then some, bantering with Tifa or Barret while keeping a brisk pace. 

They made their way to a rusting shipyard to hunt down a monster Chadley had dubbed “The Mindflayer." A local legend, it had terrorized Junon for a few months now. Thanks to the Lifesprings, Aerith could tell the group about the Mindflayer's peculiarities.

“It’s telekinetic, and uses magic to fight at a range,” she explained as they crested a nearby hill. “If you try to attack it head-on, it could fling something at you. Or just pick you up and toss you aside.” Aerith pointed at Barret’s arm and continued. “Its reflexes are even good enough to stop bullets in their tracks. This thing is no joke.” 

“Damn, you got all that from the Lifesprings?” Barret lifted his sunglasses to peer at her. 

Aerith nodded, pride blossoming in her chest. Her knowledge of the future hadn’t come back, but she felt more connected to the Planet than ever before.

Combined with her newfound fitness, she pitched something bold to the party.

“I should take point against the Mindflayer,” she declared. “You’ve all been so protective, but there are some fights that we won’t be able to win without magic.”

Tifa and Cloud glanced back at her, uncertainty on both of their faces. Aerith didn’t give them time to object. “You’ve seen me practice every night. I may still have a way to go, but fighting mystical enemies is something I know I’m good at.” 

Cloud tried to speak up, but Aerith kept going, reciting a speech she had been practicing all day. “Think about it. When we made it through the train graveyard, how would you have fought that ghost when it went intangible? Or when we fight the Arbiter on the freeway? Those minions it summoned could phase through your attacks. But not mine.”

She finished earnestly. “You’ve spent the last few weeks keeping me safe, but I want to keep you safe too. We’re a team, right? I want another chance to show what I can do.” 

Tifa and Cloud exchanged a glance, but Barret gave a deliberate nod. “You’re right. We do need to get better at changing up our tactics.”

“Yeah, but do we want to try something new against the toughest creature in the region?” Tifa responded thoughtfully, the concern evident in her voice. “Maybe we should start with something smaller.”

“There is nothing smaller,” Nanaki retorted. “The four of us have been a minor extinction event to the local fiend population.” He chuffed. “I’m in favor of letting her help out in fights. Maybe then I could rotate out to practice my healing at night. Cloud, you seem to be asking for a lot of it recently.” His good eye twinkled at his own joke. 

Cloud paled and looked away. Oddly, Tifa flushed and cleared her throat, too. Aerith glared at the Guardian. 

“Not a good idea.” Cloud broke his silence and scanned the landscape ahead. "There are three of us and one of it. Barret keeps its focus while Red and I flank it. Even if his shots don’t get through, it can only focus on one enemy at a time. Barret keeps the pressure on; we close the distance and kill it. Telekinesis neutralized.” 

"Or—" Aerith retorted— “Barret gets caught reloading. The Mindflayer tosses him aside before you’re in position. It freezes you and Red in place and comes after me and Tifa anyway.” 

She crossed her arms and continued. “There’s not gonna be a completely risk-free plan. But there can be a way to share the risk. You know, by letting everyone pitch in for tough fights.” 

Cloud set his jaw and looked back at Aerith. “It’s too dangerous.” He inhaled and started to say more, but stopped himself. A range of unreadable emotions flitted across his face. “Just… too dangerous.” 

“And going after Sephiroth isn’t?” Aerith shot back. “What happens when we get to him? I run and hide, and he politely attacks everyone but me?” She clenched her fists and felt heat rise in her face. “If you don’t trust me to help you now, you might as well send me back to Midgar tonight.”

Tifa tilted her head at Aerith’s last point. “She’s got us there. We’ll need everyone strong enough to fight him.”

Aerith shot Tifa a thankful look. “So let me get stronger.” She reached for Cloud’s arm, but he pulled it away. “Please.” 

Barret stepped forward. “I’m with the ladies here. No time like the present to get some live-fire practice in.” 

Nanaki padded over to Barret and Tifa. “I agree. It seems like four against one, Cloud. You’re overruled."

“Not that you were ever in charge,” Barret huffed. 

Cloud didn’t say anything at first. He looked back at Aerith, then the others. After a terse nod, he marched to a secluded spot in the shipyard. “We’ll set up camp here tonight and lure it out in the morning. Me, Tifa, and Aerith.” 

Without turning his head, he called back to the group. “I hope we don’t regret this tomorrow.” 

Later that night

Aerith checked the materia slotted into her staff for the sixth time since dinner. She could cover all major elemental attacks or throw out barriers to protect the others. Turning to the bangle on her arm, she puzzled over her other options. Would poison magic be too slow in a fight? Should she bring some healing magic in, or focus on offense? 

With a sigh, she opened her folio and thumbed through techniques she had jotted down. The others had begun combining their fighting styles to devastating duo attacks. Aerith hadn’t had the time to propose something similar with anyone. 

She sat near the campfire, letting the firelight illuminate her notes. The blaze warmed her against the cold mountain air. Barret and Nanaki had already turned in, and Cloud volunteered for the first watch. 

Aerith heard his footsteps in the distance. He liked to make slow laps around their campsite, rather than stay in one place like the others. The sound of his boots on the gravelly soil comforted her. She closed her eyes and listened to him pace. 

“...awful, awful idea.” A raspy whisper drifted through the darkness. Cloud’s voice? She couldn’t tell, but she slid away from the campfire and closer to the source of the noise. 

“It’s not, Cloud. She’s stronger than you give her credit for.” A soft, feminine voice merged with the first one. Tifa. 

“It’s not about strength. It’s about what we saw that night.” Cloud spoke again, still hushed. 

“The night against the Arbiter?”

“Yeah.” 

“Cloud, I barely remember any of that night. None of us do.” 

“But you remember how you felt. The grief. The loss.” 

“But that doesn’t mean it has anything to do with Aerith. What if you were thinking of Nibelheim? Your mom, my dad?” She heard Tifa sigh. “Lots of grief and loss with us.” 

“This is different. It has something to do with her. I know it.” He paced back and forth. “Something terrible is going to happen to her.”

“I want to believe you, Cloud. That’s why I backed you up in the first place. I was the one who asked her to stay out of danger. But Aerith is right. This is her fight too. Who are we to keep her out of it?” 

Cloud huffed. “We’re her friends. Friends keep each other safe.”

“Funny. You don’t seem worried about keeping me or Barret safe.” 

He didn’t respond. 

“Maybe a different kind of friend, then," Tifa muttered. 

Aerith heard Tifa rise and begin walking away from Cloud. Aerith froze. Please don’t walk this way . 

Tifa’s voice faded. She was heading deeper into the darkness. “I know that if I had to go through what she did as a kid, I wouldn’t be in a state to fight now. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t either. The fact that she wants to fight- in spite of everything that happened to her-” she stopped to collect her thoughts. “She has her own kind of strength.”  

She left a parting thought to linger as she strode away. “Aerith doesn’t need you to keep her safe. She can do it on her own.”

Aerith let Tifa’s words wash over her. Warmth flowed through her limbs that had nothing to do with the campfire. She set her gear with the others and made for the tent, her spirit soaring. 

Outside, Cloud resumed his pacing in silence.

The next morning

The sun rose over the rusting shipyard. Barret and Red broke camp while Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa examined an open area below. 

“We can bait it into fighting here,” Cloud began. “Pretty open, but with plenty of spots for cover.” He pointed out boulders, half-buried shipping containers, and wreckage sunken into the clay. “The debris should be too heavy or stuck too fast for it to pick up and toss at us.” 

Tifa nodded. “Footing looks good too. Nothing loose or slippery. And B can stay where we are to lay down suppressing fire.” 

“Aerith could stay up there too and cast spells,” Cloud ventured.

“Not really,” Aerith countered. “Too far away. The magic would dissipate too fast. I need to be closer.” She turned to him. “Besides, this is what we talked about. You and Tifa draw its attention. I stay in cover and light it up. Barret stays on overwatch with Red, who can sprint down for reinforcements if we need them."

Cloud sighed, but didn’t push the issue. “Fine. Gear check?”

Tifa clenched her gauntlets. Materia that boosted her strength and speed crackled in the chill morning air. “Ready.” 

Aerith inhaled, feeling her staff hum with energy. “Ready.” 

Cloud drew his sword, a massive hulk of steel as tall as Aerith. “Then let’s get into position.” 

They descended the slope into their chosen battlefield. Aerith slid behind a piece of wreckage and tried to calm her pounding heart. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped her staff. 

She heard Cloud and Tifa take calm, measured footsteps further into the arena. Aerith poked her head around cover and watched Cloud raise Chadley's handheld computer. It chirped twice, then emitted a discordant note. It buzzed, shattering the tranquility of the morning before going quiet. 

Cloud crouched, his sword in a defensive position. 

Tifa raised her fists, her muscles taught. 

Aerith took another breath.

For a moment, the world seemed to pause. Then the air began to seethe like boiling water. 

A gurgling, sucking cry rang out. The shimmering air darkened. 

And a nightmare emerged. 

It was a writhing mass of tentacles, looming twice as tall as Cloud. 

It didn’t walk, but floated in dreadful majesty as its limbs curled and uncurled. The tentacles settled into a vague, humanoid shape. Two arms and a robe-like cluster of tendrils for legs formed. 

It opened two sickly yellow eyes and blinked, taking in its environment. Unhurried, it turned its head. Aerith darted back behind her cover before it could spot her. She edged closer to maintain a clear view of Cloud. 

He crouched before the Mindflayer, his sword pointed upward. The creature, if it had noticed him, paid no mind. Instead, it jerked its head toward Tifa, who had climbed atop a shipping container. 

It screeched and launched itself toward her with terrifying speed.

Tifa leapt off her perch with a shout. She flipped forward with her leg outstretched, landing her heel on the monster’s head. Her momentum carried her onward as the fiend recoiled in pain. She landed hands-first, cartwheeling into a defensive position. 

The monster reeled and swept out blindly with a tentacled arm. Tifa dodged under it and caught its torso in an uppercut. Its body made an unnatural squelching sound when the blow landed. 

“Down!” Cloud cried out, and Tifa dove to the ground, a maneuver rehearsed to perfection. He swung his sword in a wide arc, and it slammed into the Mindflayer’s side, right where Tifa landed her blow. Ichor the color of rotting meat spurted from its wound. 

“Need a salvo!” Cloud barked the order as he danced back in anticipation of a counterattack.

Salvo, that’s me! Aerith danced out from behind her cover and twirled her staff end over end. Once, twice, three times a shower of sparks shot out of it and coursed towards their opponent. The spell crackled over its rubbery skin, leaving burn marks behind. 

And the follow-up, Aerith thought grimly. She raised her rod and yanked it down in a pulling motion. Power surged through her arm, connecting her to the materia in her staff. She unleashed the energy as a bolt of lightning at the Mindflayer. 

“Direct hit!” Tifa cried out. She followed up with a flurry of blows, her arms a blur as they thudded against the fiend’s fleshy abdomen. 

Cloud leapt into the air, his Mako-enhanced legs granting him impossible height. “Keep it off balance!” he shouted. He brought his sword down, but the Mindflayer darted to the side, avoiding a fatal slice. Cloud’s blade bounced off a tentacle, his cut too shallow. 

Off balance. I can do that . Aerith dropped an arcane ward at her feet, strengthening her spells. With a quick chant, she launched a gale of wind that spun the creature around. It collided with Tifa’s waiting fist. Magic flowed through Aerith just like she practiced.

“We’ve got this!” Aerith yelled. She spun her staff around again, preparing another barrage of spells. 

“Tifa!” Cloud barked. “Finish it!” He turned his sword and braced its flat end on his shoulder. Tifa took a running start and vaulted onto the surface it presented. Cloud heaved her upward like a catapult. 

With the grace of a falling comet, Tifa brought both her fists down for a killing blow. 

And then the Mindflayer paused. 

Time seemed to slow as Aerith watched with horror what happened next. 

The creature flowed backward, a twisting, unnatural swirl of tentacles. Tifa continued to fall, her fists grazing air where her target stood. 

Cloud turned in disbelief, already bringing his sword forward for another swing. 

Aerith saw the creature’s ghastly eyes glow. Tifa froze, her momentum arrested in midair. 

The Mindflayer screamed another gurgling screech and flung Tifa aside. She slammed against a half-buried ship’s hull with a sickening crunch. 

She didn’t get up. 

With a howl, Cloud finished his slash, but the creature shifted around the blade. Cloud let the momentum of the heavy sword carry him into a twisting follow-up attack. The Mindflayer dodged again with little effort. 

Tifa . Aerith dashed from her alcove and sprinted toward her fallen friend. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cloud trading blows with the Mindflayer, an endless barrage of flesh and steel. 

Aerith dove toward Tifa, the healing materia in her bracelet already glimmering. Please, please don’t be too late . Blood streamed from Tifa’s mouth and ears. “Cura!” The invocation flew from Aerith’s mouth. Her hands pulsed with energy, and she placed them on either side of Tifa’s head. 

“Cura!” A second spell, over Tifa’s heart. She felt, rather than heard, broken ribs knit back together. 

“Aerith! Salvo!” She heard Cloud’s hoarse cry, but didn’t turn from her friend. She let one last pulse of white magic encircle Tifa and saw her chest rise and fall. She was still breathing. 

“Salvo!” Cloud sounded more frantic. Alarmed, Aerith stood and turned to the pair locked in combat. Cloud moved sluggishly. The Mindflayer radiated an aura of Slow magic. Its eyes glowed once more.

Aerith flung her staff out, not taking the time to prepare an elemental attack. Sparks danced from its end and winked out against the monster’s defensive aura.

Shit . 

It turned to face her. Cloud growled and leapt towards the fiend, his blade raised. The Mindflayer raised an arm, almost absentmindedly, and Cloud flew backward. He landed in a heap, groaning. 

Shit .

Tifa was down. Cloud was down. 

On the hilltop above, Barret and Nanaki began barreling down to the arena. With a snort, the Mindflayer expelled a wave of purple energy. It caught the two of them mid-stride. They froze in place, their eyes darting about helplessly. 

Aerith stumbled backward. The Mindflayer turned its attention back to her. It rose into the air and began drifting, unhurried, toward its final victim. 

Panic erupted in Aerith’s chest and caused her vision to swim. Without thought, she whirled her staff in sweeping arcs and screamed. Half-formed spells flared out of it in a flurry: ice, fire, lightning, wind. They glanced harmlessly off the Mindflayer’s rubbery skin. The magic she felt earlier in the fight began to fade. She was getting tired. Unfocused.

“Aerith…” Cloud’s hoarse voice cut through the terror in Aerith’s mind. She saw him trying to get to his knees behind the monster. "Aerith… run…"

The Mindflayer flicked a tentacle, and Cloud slammed into the ground with a moan. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen. They’d had a plan. Monsters put up a fight and then died. Cloud didn’t lose. Tifa didn’t lose. 

But they never had dead weight backing them up . 

Aerith fell backward and began scrambling away from the Mindflayer. It reached out and she felt its mind press against hers, a million worms burrowing into her thoughts. 

It fed on her despair. Desperately, Aerith tried crawling back to the arcane ward she had set at the start of the fight. The Mindflayer made no attempt to stop her. Fear coursed off her in waves, and the creature drank it up, writhing in pleasure. 

I’m going to die here. We’re all going to die here . 

Aerith made it to the ward and rose to her feet. Shaking, she tried another spell. The Mindflayer snorted, jerking Aerith sideways with a sharp mental thrust. Its eyes glittered. Was it… enjoying itself? 

We’re going to die in a shipyard, and it’s all my fault. 

She focused and brought her staff up, and the Mindflayer snapped it down with a sneer. It was playing with its food. 

“Aerith…” Cloud rasped. Still prone, he had turned his head to look at her. His eyes, mixed with fear and regret, began to close. “Some… bodyguard…” he breathed. He reached for her, and his hand fell. 

Aerith gasped and reached for him. She dropped any attempt at fighting the Mindflayer, focusing on another healing spell. She felt the magic bloom within her. She stretched her hand out. 

Her hand froze. She tried to turn back to the Mindflayer, but her head no longer moved. Panting, she turned her eyes and saw the monster meandering over to Cloud. Its xanthous eyes gleamed in hunger. 

“No!” she cried out as best as she could with her jaw frozen. Aerith squirmed against her invisible bonds, trying to center herself for another spell. The Mindflayer scowled, irritated at her resistance. She felt herself rise into the air, invisible cords tightening around her chest. 

In a few moments, she knew the Mindflayer would slam her into the earth and that would be the end of their adventure.

Useless. 

The fear in her chest congealed into anger. Anger at herself for thinking she could fight. Anger at the Mindflayer for taking her friends away from her. Anger at the Planet for giving her guidance for years, only to turn silent now. 

The Planet.

Aerith couldn’t move. She couldn’t cast. She couldn’t speak. But she could pray. 

She took the anger in her chest and tried to launch it outward. She wanted the Planet to feel her rage, her helplessness.

We’re supposed to save you! she stormed. We’re helping you! Can you help us? At all? 

She didn’t know the right words to use. Her mother never taught her. But her plea was beyond words. She projected her desperation outward and downward. Her rage, her sorrow, her love for the others. She tried to make the Planet understand. I can’t lose them. Please. 

The Mindflayer stopped its gurgling. The world became eerily quiet. There was nothing around to hear her prayers.

Please. 

The moment she stayed suspended in the air stretched into eternity. Aerith continued to rise.

The Mindflayer moved to Cloud, its arms outstretched. Suspended, she watched in horror as its tentacles enveloped him. 

It can’t end like this! She cast her mind outward, trying to sense for the same presence she felt in her church, her garden. She used to talk to her flowers, and the flowers bloomed in response. She sent the planet her love, and it sent her beauty in response. 

Aerith didn’t need beauty now. She needed power. So she sent her anger outward instead.

Answer me, dammit!

The Mindflayer ran its tentacles over Cloud’s limp body, caressing its meal. The battlefield was silent.

And then the Planet stirred. 

With a rumble, light burst from the ends of Aerith’s hands. It encircled her in thin strands of pure radiance, a latticework of splendor. The Mindflayer’s hold on her dissipated, and she drifted back to the ground. An unfamiliar grace settled into her body. She felt lighter than air.

Aerith spun on her heel, her staff an extension of her arm. More strands of light danced from the end of her weapon and cavorted, lacelike, over Tifa and Cloud’s still forms. When the Mindflayer tried to reach for Cloud, its limbs ricocheted off. It wailed in frustration and turned to Aerith. 

The fiend shrieked and lifted dozens of pieces of debris into the air. They tumbled end over end in a cyclone. The Mindflayer sent them hurtling toward Aerith. She batted them away without sparing a thought. 

She planted her staff, sending more incandescent tendrils into the ground. They shimmered into another arcane ward, more elaborate than anything she had conjured. It gleamed like silver in the light of the Planet’s protection. 

It was radiant. 

Aerith felt herself surge with energy. 

The Mindflayer bombarded her with more wreckage as it flew toward her, its arms writhing. It pulsed with terrible power as it focused its energy into a devastating psychic blast. 

Aerith raised her staff, preparing a salvo of sparks. Instead, a lance of argent light shot forward, skewering the Mindflayer. It screeched in pain. She looked down and saw her ward glowing, empowering her attacks. 

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. She sent her gratitude to the Planet and continued to twirl her staff. More spears of silver formed and impaled the Mindflayer. It bled from half a dozen wounds and squealed with impotence. 

Aerith’s body thrummed with magic. It built to a crescendo within her, begging for a release. She tensed, building the power until she couldn’t bear it anymore, and released it. A final beam of light exploded from her staff into the Mindflayer’s chest.

For a moment, it glimmered like it was lit from within. With a final gurgling screech, its tentacles stiffened. The creature ruptured into a mist of crimson meat. 

Aerith felt the power drain from her. Her ward faded. With the last of her strength, she sent a wave of healing energy into her friends and collapsed in a heap. 

Later

Aerith didn’t know how long she slept. She did feel how badly she needed the rest. She had channeled more energy than ever before. Energy from the planet, from her materia, and from her own body. She needed to recover.

She awoke in fits and starts. She felt her bedroll around her, but her shoes were on and her hair was still up. Somewhere between awake and asleep, she thought about the fight. 

She had almost died, down there in the mud of the shipyard. Even their fight with the specter of Sephiroth hadn’t cut it that close. She shuddered as images of Tifa slumped against the debris flooded her memory. The helplessness of being suspended in the air as the Mindflayer stalked toward her. 

Cloud couldn’t have finished it on its own. Nanaki and Barret got shut out before they could even begin fighting back. 

Did we win… because of me?

She drifted closer to sleeping. That can’t be right . I’m the dead weight . Something else must have intervened at the end. 

A new sensation pulled her closer to waking. Someone was running their fingers through it, gently teasing out her braid. 

Her eyes felt heavy, and she kept them closed. It felt good to focus on the softness of the bedroll and the tenderness of the hands in her hair. She heard the crackling of a campfire and the others’ voices, pitched low and tinged with worry.

Another voice murmured near her. It was so soft that Aerith thought she might have been imagining it. 

“...and then, we could go topside if you wanted. Tifa said Sector 3 had the best streets for window shopping. I think it’s close enough that we could walk around a while and still get back to your mom’s house before dark.”

Cloud’s voice. Barely a whisper. He was sitting behind her, coaxing knots out of her hair. 

“I say window shopping because I’m not sure how much stuff costs on the Plate. But maybe I can save up from a few jobs too.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “If you wake up I’ll buy you whatever you want, okay?” He faltered, his voice cracking. 

Before Aerith could respond, she heard another pair of footsteps approach. Cloud’s hands darted out of her hair, and she heard him slide his gloves back on. 

“I brought her another potion. Has she changed at all?” Tifa asked. She didn’t whisper, but worry still laced her tone. 

“No. She’s breathing, but hasn’t moved since the fight. Still unconscious.” 

“I thought I saw your lips moving, though?” Tifa sounded curious as she settled into a seat next to Cloud. 

Cloud cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah. Old Soldier trick.” He paused. “You… go through rifle drill commands with concussion victims. The repetition helps their memories come back. Helps them wake up.”

“...Right.” Tifa began unscrewing the lid of the potion. It hissed with carbonation. 

Aerith felt the bottle against her lips as Tifa rubbed her throat. More ran down her chin than made it into her mouth. Still, she felt the concoction warm her limbs and ease the weight on her eyelids. 

“Mmhph.” Aerith opened her eyes and saw Cloud and Tifa hovering over her, the relief plain on their faces. She sat up and sighed. 

“Some day, huh?”

Tifa whooped and threw her arms around Aerith. “We were so worried. I was only starting to come to when your light show started.” 

She pulled back from Aerith, admiration in her eyes. “I had no idea you could do that.” 

Aerith laughed. “I didn’t either. But when I saw everyone else in trouble, something just… woke up inside me. I couldn’t let you get hurt.” 

Tifa saw it too. It hadn’t been someone else to save them. Aerith did it. 

Not so useless . 

Cloud climbed to his feet and offered a hand up to Tifa. “You stay where you are. Teef and I can go get you food and water.” He turned to Aerith. “That was… incredible, though. Even if Barret and Red were there from the jump, I don’t think we’d have beaten that thing without you.” 

Aerith leaned back on her arms and hummed, smiling. “Is that a ‘thank you’ I hear?” 

“It might be.” 

“Is that an ‘Aerith, we need you and your incredible fighting skills in every fight moving forward?”

“Don’t push your luck.” 

Tifa interjected over Cloud. “It is an ‘Aerith, you should rotate in and out of fights with the rest of us.’” She hesitated. “Cloud’s right. We’d be dead without you. It’s not fair to ask you to hang back anymore.” 

Aerith smiled. “Sounds like a plan. Maybe that means we can pick up a few more jobs here and there.” She tilted her head as if an idea came to her. "Might be nice to have some shopping money. I hear Sector Three is nice."

Cloud stumbled as he walked away.

In the Lifestream

Aerith surged through Junon on emerald currents, reflecting on her time there. The shift from “baggage” to “teammate.” 

Junon was where Aerith had learned how to fight- how to really fight. It was the first time that she fought for her friends. They began to rely on her, and her on them. For so much of her life, Aerith thought of herself as harmless. A flower girl, a singer, a friend in the slums. But the Mindflayer gave her a new facet to her identity. She could be a warrior too. When she knew there was something worth fighting for, she knew she could count on herself- and her friends could count on her too. 

I can fight , she realized. I will fight .

After the Mindflayer battle, Aerith pulled her weight- and then some- in combat. She remembered the undercity fishing village. The struggle against the enormous sea monster in the harbor, where she effortlessly threaded her spells between fists, bullets, fangs, and blades. 

She remembered sneaking into the upper city. The parade. The hushed conversation with Rufus Shinra. The young ninja that almost undid everything. 

She remembered seeing the sea surge where the offshore reactor worked. It gorged itself on the Lifestream, and she felt its pull even now. 

From the Lifestream, she approached the harbor and manifested her body. 

“I’m not afraid of you,” she remarked to the yawning machine. She looked down at herself, which seemed more solid than it ever had before. It resisted the pull of the harvester. 

Her outfit hadn't changed. But her staff appeared with her for the first time since passing on. Aerith felt the weight in her palm with satisfaction.

She felt Ifalna’s voice reach out to her. Have you learned what you need from this place, Petal?  

With a smile, she threw down a radiant ward between her and the reactor and drank in her memories of the city. 

“You know, I think I have.” 

Chapter Text

Lost at Sea

The Lifestream

In hindsight, Aerith shouldn’t have been surprised to find the Lifestream in the world’s oceans- they teemed with activity. Reefs, fish, whales, and plants that the surface would never see lived and died unseen. Then, they joined the same chorus of souls as the people and animals above. 

Still, she marveled at the sheer variety of life around her. She followed the trail of her memories from Junon into the Meridian Ocean.

Aerith manifested, staff in hand, near Junon’s cargo docks. A reef as colorful as any terrestrial garden bloomed under her. Undersea flowers , she thought with a smile. “Did you know about all of this? While you were still… alive, I mean.” 

She had started talking to Ifalna even when her mother hadn’t materialized. Her spirit was never far from Aerith’s, but hearing her daughter’s voice seemed to make it easier to appear. Ifalna was having a harder time corporealizing as Aerith’s journey continued. 

The older Cetra appeared with a pulse of light. The scent of pine needles and fresh snow always blossomed with her- a clean scent that always made Aerith feel safe. This time, Ifalna had lines around her eyes. Aerith noticed them with a frown. 

“I had a vague sense, Petal. Especially when I was younger.” Her face grew distant as she reminisced. “The village I grew up in was closer to the coast than Midgar. I could sometimes sense great whales calling to each other.” 

With a pang of guilt, Aerith realized she didn’t know much about her mother’s childhood. She didn't know any of Ifalna’s life before their capture, in fact. Hojo’s experiments didn’t leave much time for the two of them to have normal-people talks. 

Ifalna must have seen the melancholy in Aerith, because she drifted over to her and wrapped her in a hug. “I’d love to tell you all about that place one day, Petal. But there can be time enough later for that.” 

She kissed the top of Aerith’s head. “But I’m so much more excited to hear about what you’ve learned in the mountains. And in the sea! You took a ship across the ocean! Tell me, what was that like?” 

“I’m not sure yet,” Aerith began. “I'm finished revisiting Junon now. There was a fishing village, and a fort to the east. We helped out a lot of people, and we figured out how to get to the upper city.”

She giggled. “We actually stole some Shinra uniforms and performed in a parade. We did so well we managed to get free passage on a ship heading west. We had a lead that Sephiroth was across the ocean.” 

Ifalna let Aerith out of the hug and floated contentedly beside her. “That sounds like something out of an adventure novel.”

Her eyes flickered to the staff in Aerith’s hands. “It looks like there were some other revelations too.” The weapon had begun appearing whenever Aerith manifested. “You seem… more solid of late.” 

Aerith glanced down at the worn staff, running a fond thumb along the grip. “Junon was where I learned how to fight.” 

Ifalna cocked her head. “You’d been fighting for months, Petal. In Midgar and beyond. I could sense the echoes of your magic.” 

Aerith hummed, thinking about how to explain her revelation. “Yeah. But Junon was the first time where I felt like I could hold my own. I wasn’t just casting spells. I was fighting . Fighting for something.” 

“Or fighting for some one ?” Ifalna asked with a twinkle in her eye. “A good sparring partner can make all the difference.” 

Aerith reddened. “Fighting for some thing ,” she insisted. “Not someone. What good would fighting for someone do me now?”

She glanced down at her body, which flickered for a moment before solidifying. “No sense holding any someone back now that I’m here and he’s… there.” She gestured to the living world, visible on the other side of the Lifestream’s currents. 

“You might be surprised what’s still worth fighting for, Petal,” Ifalna consoled. She began to fade into the Lifestream, her brief visit already taxing her weary spirit. “But I’m sorry if I crossed a line. Would you mind telling me what happened on the ship? I like hearing you talk. Even if I can’t be alongside you.” 

Aerith watched dejectedly as her mother faded. It was hard not to feel the loneliness creep back. Maybe speaking out loud could help keep the feelings of isolation at bay. “I’d be happy to,” she promised. Ifalna’s smile broadened as she faded out of sight.

“Like I said, we had tricked our way onto a ship called the Shinra-8. We were wearing disguises, and made our way into the cargo bay…”

The docks of Junon

…The stern ramp of the Shinra-8 closed behind them, and the massive ship’s hold sealed up. Aerith heard a horn blare out, and engines began to rumble under her feet. The air smelled like salt and diesel.

Despite everything- the sea monster, the parade, the attack on Rufus- her spirits soared. Here she was, freer than she had ever been, on the biggest ship she had ever seen. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, letting the sense of adventure wash over her. 

“We should split up. Draw less attention to ourselves.” Cloud’s matter-of-fact observation brought her back to her senses. “Barret’s already fallen in with the sailors. I’m gonna check out our lodgings. See if it’s safe to stow our gear.” 

Beside him, Nanaki harrumphed in his Red XIII voice. “I’m going to the sun deck. I pray someone tries to stop me.” His sour mood from when the customs officer called him their dog hadn’t dissipated. He padded up a set of stairs, his tail swishing in irritation. 

“I can go with you to check out the rooms,” Tifa declared brightly. “We could try to get some of the bunks by the window!” 

“Pass.” Cloud’s tone was flat. “Only need one set of eyes to find the rooms.”

Tifa’s shoulders fell. “You sure? I could help you with the bags. Maybe grab a bite after?” She tilted her head, a fragile smile dancing on her lips. Pleading. 

Cloud had already begun climbing the stairs. “Not hungry. And bags aren’t that heavy.” He didn’t even turn around. 

Tifa watched him retreat as she wrapped her arms around herself. Even in her borrowed Shinra armor she looked more fragile than ever. 

Aerith eased up to her friend and slipped her arm into Tifa’s. “You give a guy a captain’s helmet for one afternoon and he gets too good for his friends, huh?” 

Tifa chuckled. “Maybe so. It’s just…” she trailed off, looking at the hatch into second class wistfully. 

“Just what?” 

“I thought we were moving past all this…friction,” Tifa finally admitted. “We had a great talk in the fishing village. Back at the inn, you know? Felt like we were on the same page. He was acting like the old Cloud.”

“From Nibelheim?” Aerith often wondered what the ex-SOLDIER had been like as a boy. 

“Yeah. He was acting like the Cloud that I…” she cleared her throat. “Well, he was starting to act like a friend again.” 

She looked down. “Maybe even more than a friend.”

Aerith felt her mouth dry out. More than a friend? She knew the two had been close as children, but she had assumed their relationship was more like a pair of long-lost siblings. 

Or maybe she had just hoped Cloud and Tifa thought of themselves like long-lost siblings.

Not that I care , Aerith told herself. Why would I care? Cloud’s just a friend . 

Sure. Just a friend that she kept inviting on dates. Friends could go on dates. A friend could run his hands through her hair when she was hurt and whisper her name when he thought no one could hear him…

She shook her head and squashed the thought into the recesses of her mind. Doesn’t matter what I want . 

Aerith patted Tifa’s arm. “Boys. Tricky business at the best of times.” She slid down behind a shipping container and patted the space next to her. “If you want a buddy, you’ve got one right here, you know.”

Tifa beamed and joined Aerith on the floor. “A buddy sounds nice.”

They leaned against the container, feeling the engines rumble under them. Eventually, Aerith broke the silence. 

“Anything you want to chat about?” 

“Hmm.” Tifa considered the question. “Actually, I was hoping to learn a little more about you.” She hesitated. “If it’s not too personal, of course.” 

“Not too personal,” Aerith replied in a rush. “It’s funny though. No one wanted to hear my story. At least not more than the ‘last Ancient’ bit.”

“Well, there’s got to be more to you than that,” Tifa encouraged.

“Maybe a little,” Aerith admitted. “It’s kind of a long story though.” 

“Not much else to do right now. Besides, I used to tend bar. I’m used to hearing long stories.” Tifa pantomimed pouring a drink. 

Aerith grinned as she took the invisible cup. “If you’re sure…” 

And so she told the fighter about growing up in Shinra’s lab. About the experiments on her and her mother. She talked about Ifalna’s warmth amid her steady decline. The escape that cost her mother her life. 

She spoke about Elmyra, and finding the church full of flowers. 

She talked about the rogue lab assistant that tracked her down. About the mysterious gunshot that saved her from another abduction. About learning of the Turks and their quiet surveillance of her life. 

She talked about Zack. 

After what felt like hours, she finished her tale with the story of meeting Cloud on the night of the bombing. A SOLDIER with the same uniform and sword as the first man she ever loved. 

Aerith trailed off as her story tied into what Tifa already knew of her. Her throat hurt. She didn’t think she had ever talked that much at one time. 

For a while, Tifa didn’t say anything. She sat next to Aerith, absorbing the details of a life spent in one kind of cage or another. 

Aerith chuckled. “I guess that’s a lot to lay on someone.” She leaned back against the crate and exhaled. “But it means a lot that you’d listen. I feel… lighter now.” 

Tifa leaned back beside Aerith. “You haven’t told anyone else all of this?”

Aerith shook her head. “Elmyra knows bits and pieces. But other than that, no. I think… the world has too much darkness in it for me to add to it with a story like this. People have their own problems, you know?” 

“Well, I’m glad you told me yours,” Tifa said kindly. “A burden shared is a burden halved, after all.” 

“More lessons from life on the ground floor?” 

Tifa smiled. “A Nibelheim special, actually.” She turned to Aerith, her face serious. “Just know I’m here if you wanna talk. About anything.”

Aerith nodded. She did feel lighter. Maybe sharing her story allowed her to put down a heavy weight she’d been carrying for years. Maybe opening up wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. 

But maybe a little levity could be good too. 

“Actually,” Aerith began, “I was kinda hoping we could talk about business.” 

Tifa tilted her head quizzically. “Uh, what kind of business?” 

Aerith thought back to Zack, and to Tifa’s stories of her gang of friends in Nibelheim growing up. About the flirts in Sector Five and Tifa’s regulars at Seventh Heaven. 

She thought back to the feelings she had just squashed down. If Tifa tells me, it’ll be real. I’ll back off. Easier that way. 

She leaned forward conspiratorially. “You know, business .” She winked. “Boys.” 

Tifa’s eyes lit up with understanding. “Oh, that kind.”  

A familiar set of footsteps approached, and they paused. 

“It’s me.” Cloud announced himself as flatly as ever. 

The two conspirators stepped out from behind their crate. Aerith watched as Tifa’s entire disposition brightened upon seeing the mercenary. She turned to Aerith and winked. “Meeting adjourned for now.” 

Cloud stated that they could move through the ship in their normal clothes. No restrictions. The group made their way back to the staterooms to change.

Aerith’s stomach sank as she watched Tifa bounce, animated, beside Cloud. She asked him about what he’d seen on the ship already. Meeting adjourned indeed . 

***

The rest of the day aboard Shinra-8 was far more relaxing. Aerith rested on the open-air deck with Nanaki and chatted. They both took advantage of the cruise’s complementary food and drinks. They were fancier than Aerith was used to, but delicious. And free.

The captain had declared a Queen’s Blood tournament to take place in the evening. Nanaki had asked to borrow a set of cards, which he studied with gusto. Aerith didn’t much care for the game, but she did enjoy watching Cloud and Nanaki pore over their decks. Games could be serious business. 

After an early elimination, Aerith meandered back below decks alone. Her head swam with a pleasant buzz from a few drinks at the bar, and she hummed a song to herself. Hammocks lined the walls of a community sleeping space, along with shelves for luggage. She spotted the corner where Tifa had dropped their gear.

Stepping out of the dorm, she watched a cluster of black-robed men wander through second class and frowned. 

They always seemed so lost. She had seen her fair share of them in the slums, and even more since leaving Midgar. Even still, her heart never stopped hurting when she watched them shamble around. 

Their sunken skin and thin arms made her wonder how often they ate. Their tattered clothes made her wonder how often they slept somewhere sheltered. 

Their eyes were the worst part about them, though. They were haunted, empty things that always seemed out of focus. Aerith had noticed that the worse one of the victims seemed, the greener their eyes glowed. It was like the Mako had subsumed most of their humanity.

Whenever she looked into their eyes, she tried to catch glimpses of the people they were before. Flashes of thought died as fast as they appeared, leaving only a profound impression of sadness behind. 

As always, Aerith tried approaching them to help. She spoke in a gentle tone. “Can I get you anything? Are you hungry?” She wandered to each of the men in turn, touching an arm here, a back there. “Do you know where you can sleep for the night?” 

She smiled as she addressed each of them in turn. Not once did any of them ever respond, but Aerith hoped that a little kindness might be able to reach them. 

“Re…u…nion…” Raspy words drifted through the chatter of second class. Aerith turned. 

One of the black robed men stared directly at her, his eyes glittering in the dim light. “Re…u…nion…” He choked the word out, then raised his hands over his ears and groaned. He squeezed his eyes shut and fell to his knees. 

Aerith rushed over to the broken man, her fingers crackling with a healing spell. She reached for his forehead, and felt something WRONG leap from his thoughts into hers. Something fathomless, ancient, and cold. A twisting sort of intrusive idea that made Aerith think of rot and sickness.

“Please… no… re…u…nion…” tears spilled from the man’s eyes as he continued to block his ears. A festering sense of blackness pulsed off of him, worming its way into Aerith’s thoughts. The man was afraid. He sensed something coming. Something wrong.

Dread coursed through Aerith like an electric shock. Her head felt like it would split open. She pulled back, letting the healing spell die in her hand. The man curled into a ball, holding his head, but said nothing further. 

As he separated from her, the sense of dread faded. Like oil sinking back down into the pit it came from, the black thought fell from her mind. Disturbed, Aerith made her way to the hammocks and prepared for bed. She drifted off into a fitful sleep. 

***

Aerith awoke to screaming. 

A cacophony of men and women, young and old, rang out all around her. She smelled smoke in the air. The ship’s klaxons blared, and she fell out of her hammock. 

She staggered upright as the ship pitched under her. Her staff, which she had propped up beside her bunk, rolled across the room. She darted for it, her bare feet cold on the metal floor.

Red emergency lighting pulsed in time with the ship’s sirens. Were they sinking? Had they hit something? Aerith frantically scanned the large room for Tifa. She couldn’t make out much in the dim lighting and frantic passengers milling about. 

Got to get my bearings , she thought. She darted into the hallway, where more passengers congregated. 

“Cloud! Barret! Tifa!” She couldn't hear herself over the chaos. “Nanaki!” The Guardian would have the best chance of hearing her. She hoped the sound of his true name would cut through the bedlam. 

Other passengers from the dormitory began shoving her forward. Aerith realized if she stayed near the doorways she ran the risk of being trampled. Up or down. Pick a direction that’s anywhere from here . She spotted the staircase up to the sun deck and began weaving her upward. 

“CLOUD!”

She pushed her way past the others, taking the stairs two at a time. 

“TIFA!”

She scoured the corridors for signs of her friends, but only saw more panicked passengers.

“BARRET!”

Where was the crew? A full complement of security officers had boarded in Junon. 

“NANAKI!”

She burst into the fresh air, moonlight streaming from above. The scent of saltwater and the sound of the ocean felt almost surreal. The scene was too tranquil compared to the tumult below. 

Then the screaming started again. 

Aerith spotted passengers lying in pools of blood around the sun deck. Fiends leapt from the side of the ship into the boat. They laid into the defenseless tourists with abandon. 

Aerith had stepped into the middle of a massacre. 

The fiends looked like the failed experiments that lived under the slums. They were a motley collection of claws, fangs, and limbs dead set on killing. Flitting through the air, they feasted on the passengers.

Some part of her, the conscious part of her, switched off. Think about this later. For now, act . Move . 

She ran to the nearest casualty, grateful to the instinct that told her to sleep in her jewelry. Golden orbs of materia on her wrists lit up as she sent healing prayers to as many people around her as possible. 

Several people groaned as life surged through them. Many more remained silent. The magic came too late. 

Aerith sprinted from person to person, checking for pulses. She did what she could for anyone who stirred. She kept a low profile, trying to avoid the monsters’ attention. 

As she made her way across the sun deck, she heard a familiar roar, and the sound of rending claws on flesh. Nanaki.

He was a bolt of scarlet lightning in the moonlight. He dashed between half a dozen monsters, dodging and weaving before any one of them could land a blow. 

Nanaki leapt into the air, the moon at his back, and howled. It was a primal sort of taunt- an invitation to the remaining monsters. Come to me , the howl jeered. I am your opponent now . 

One by one, the monsters peeled off the civilians and flew towards the beastly warrior. The materia in his collar flared, and fire erupted from his paws and mouth. He tore into the crowd with renewed vigor. 

Aerith watched, transfixed, until she heard Nanaki bark out. “Mind lending a hand?” His growl snapped her out of her reverie. 

She dropped an arcane ward at her feet- the same kind that had proven so effective against the Mindflayer. She began launching spears of glowing silver at the monsters. They pierced the fiends closest to Nanaki, pinning them to the deck. He looked up at her and blinked in appreciation, his mouth full of a dying monster.

Aerith only faintly noticed she had forgotten to put on her boots in the chaos belowdecks. Gotta watch for splinters , she thought.

She sprinted to the lower level of the sun deck. Several monsters turned from Nanaki and flew towards her. With a grunt, she launched a gust of wind that blasted them over the railing, then called lightning to stun them. They dropped, paralyzed, into the water below. 

A fresh wave of fiends immediately soared over their dying packmates. Aerith gritted her teeth and prepared another volley of spells. Nanaki leapt in front of her, gnashing at any foe that got too close. 

“There’s too many here!” he raged. “The two of us can’t hold this position!” 

Aerith gawked at the rising tide of fiends that continued to surge from the depths below. Nakaki was right.

“Maybe three people can.” A whirlwind of steel shot from the entrance to the dining hall. It cut down hordes of enemies with each swing. Cloud. 

Aerith breathed a sigh of relief. “What about Tifa and Barret?”

“Below decks. The captain needed spare hands. The monsters are trying to get to something in the cargo hold.” 

Another wave of monsters leapt from below and charged for the entrance. Nanaki roared as he leapt to intercept them, and Aerith covered his flank with a barrage of fireballs. Each one struck true. 

Cloud followed up with another series of blows that felled the remainder of the wave. Just as the last monster died, two more waves of fiends tore through the air and rushed to the ship’s interior. 

“Three can’t hold this position either,” Nanaki snarled. He turned to Cloud. “We can handle this. Get belowdecks and protect the civilians.” 

Cloud glanced to Aerith, who nodded in agreement. He hesitated for just a moment before muttering “Be safe.”

He disappeared down the stairs. 

“We need to make a bottleneck,” Aerith realized. “Slow them down.” 

Nanaki darted up the stairs and switched his voice to his higher register. “My mom showed me a trick once. Toss me your ice materia. Fast, before more come.” 

Aerith popped the orb out of her staff and fitted it into Nanaki’s collar. It began to glow immediately. 

“You want to make a wall that won’t melt. Focus on the freezing part of the spell, but not the shattering.” He summoned a crystalline shard, then launched it near the doorway where it stuck and held fast. 

Aerith saw Nanaki’s trick right away. “A wall!” 

He nodded. “You’re gonna be quicker than me. I’ll keep them off your back but you need to stop them from getting in. Sound good?” 

Aerith nodded and took the materia back. More rumbling started around the prow. Nanaki rushed back, calling, “I’ll keep them busy! You stop any more from getting in!” 

Right. Freezing, but not shattering . Aerith adjusted her conception of the spell. With a breath, she summoned crystals of ice and set them in the corners of the doorway inside. She sent a quick prayer to Tifa, Barret, and Cloud. Be safe, you three. We won’t be able to come to you once we seal this up . 

A single monster escaped Nanaki’s claws and flew to the door, colliding with the wall of ice. It bounced off, stunned. Aerith called lightning and struck it down. Its corpse sizzled before fading away. 

For a moment, her head swam. That was a lot of magic in a short amount of time. Reflexively, she reached for an ether in her pack and cursed. All of their supplies were still below deck. Gotta pace myself, then . 

Nanaki must have realized the same thing. He had slowed his ferocious onslaught, baiting individual fiends to lash at him one at a time instead. Aerith sent one last wave of ice into the door and ran down to join him. The deck was slick with monster blood. 

“You okay?” Aerith didn’t have the energy to say more. For his part, Nanaki could only nod. 

“We make our stand here. Cloud and the others…” he panted. “...They can flush the rest out downstairs.” 

Aerith gritted her teeth and sent a healing spell through him. He chuffed in appreciation as the cuts across his body closed. 

Nanaki rocked forward, renewed. Dozens of fiends fell to fang and claw. Aerith picked off enemies in his blind spot, each spell coming slower than the one before it. 

She couldn’t tell how much time had passed. Minutes? Hours? Surely longer than any fight she’d been in before. Her limbs felt wooden and her head swam. Beside her, Nanaki faltered. 

“There’s no end to them. We’re going to have to retreat.” His shoulders slumped. 

Aerith glanced at the ice barrier. “Retreat where? We blocked our only way in.” She danced to the side as another monster lunged at her. Nanaki lunged at its throat and it died like the hundreds before it. 

“I don’t know. But we have to get away from-” he froze. “Do you feel that?” 

The fiends on the deck screeched and threw themselves overboard. In seconds, deadly silence had replaced the chaotic sounds of the fight.

Aerith’s heart pounded in her chest. The darkness of the night seemed to thicken around them. Something was coming. That sense of rotting dread and ancient rancor began to wriggle its way into her brain.

The deck rumbled beneath them. Aerith’s head, already pounding from her marathon of spellcasting, exploded with agony. Bile rose in her stomach and she fell to her hands and knees. 

Something WRONG just emerged in the darkness below. 

Around her, the corpses of monsters screeched and sizzled. Their limbs curled like dead insects. Nakaki screamed as he squeezed his eyes shut. 

The dreadful, foul WRONGNESS she sensed before now assailed her from all sides.

It was a nausea of the soul, a twisting, formless corruption in the air around her. 

A Calamity. 

.and.what…

.exactly…

.do.WE...have…here?

The thoughts blossomed in her brain like tumors. They squeezed her thoughts- her sense of self- to the margins of her mind. An alien presence, fumbling to shape its will into something Aerith could understand. 

.one.last…PLAYTHING…

.from.before?

Gurgling laughter resounded in her head. Aerith curled into a ball, tucking her head between her arms in a vain attempt to keep the Presence out. She prayed to the Planet- she prayed to anything- for the strength to keep the horror at bay. 

.do.you.attempt…

.to.stop.the.REUNION?

.will.you.die…

.like.the.rest.of.your.kind?

An image of ancient cities, unlike anything humans had built, burning. Screaming Cetra cut down by hordes of nightmares. Fear. Agony. Despair. 

Jenova. 

“You’re dead,” Aerith breathed. “You’re dead and gone.” She struggled to sit up. Her limbs, leaden, didn’t move. 

.you.cannot.KILL…

.INEVITABILITY…

Derision and scorn pricked Aerith’s skin like  needles. Jenova’s emotions washed over her body, not just her mind and soul.

.though.the.PLAYTHINGS.below…

.try…

A vision of Cloud, Tifa, and Barret, surrounded by inhuman masses of flesh and darkness. They lashed out against the malignancy below. 

.you.try.too…

.you.TRIED.too…

.you.WILL.try.too…

The crushing weight of alien thoughts and images almost caused Aerith to black out. 

A temple far to the north. 

A prayer. 

A glowing orb of white. 

A blade. 

A death. 

Aerith rolled onto her back, wheezing. Pieces of the visions the Whispers had taken from her. Visions that continued to assail her. 

Lingering in the Lifestream.

Holy.

Guiding the survivors to victory. 

Victory incomplete.

Remnants corrupting the Lifestream. 

A second Advent of the corruption.

A second victory. Incomplete again.

A lifetime in purgatory, watching her friends grow old and die. 

The rot, never fully purged, metastasizing across space and time. 

.you.failed.then…

.you.fail.NOW.

“You’re WRONG!” Aerith yelled in defiance. Colors danced in her vision. She couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. 

.inevitability.cannot.BE.wrong…

.only.delayed…

.and.we.KNOW.your.tricks.now…

Aerith’s materia, once white, now transparent. 

.we.know.you.PERSIST.now…

Lingering in the Lifestream. Guiding the others. 

.we.will.FIND.you!

A ripping, tearing sensation in Aerith’s soul. Everything around her went black. 

.we.know.YOU.watch.us…

.even.NOW.

Aerith felt her soul rip through, and her mind was cast out of her body.

Aerith’s memory of the Shinra-8 shuddered to a halt. 

She was back in the Lifestream. 

Dead. 

Aerith manifested her body in alarm. She had never been pushed out of a memory before. 

Around her, the vibrant emerald light of the Lifestream paled. Her skin and dress faded to gray. The chorus of souls around her clotted into sludge and their music warped into a single atonal scream.

Even here, the WRONGNESS followed her. Chased her from a memory to another plane altogether.

Aerith couldn’t move. Couldn’t fight. Couldn’t summon her ward.

.we.will.FIND.you.in.this.place….

.DEATH.is.not.a.refuge.THIS.TIME.

Oily, sap-like pools of pus appeared around her. Tendrils of raw malice wriggled through the Lifestream, searching for her. 

.where.are.you…ANCIENT?

“You want an Ancient?” Aerith gasped as Ifalna manifested beside her, a gnarled wand in her hand. “Here’s an Ancient.” Her eyes shone with the verdance of the Lifestream. A beam of light flared from the tip of her wand, boiling the clots of Jenova’s will away.

.foolish…

.enjoy.your.PARLOR.TRICKS…

.we.know.where.you.ARE.now…

.and.even.the.MIRRORS.cannot.HIDE.YOU.FROM.ME!

The presence- the wrongness- faded from the Lifestream. Ifalna turned to Aerith, wan and translucent. 

She smiled thinly.  “I suppose it was only a matter of time before she tried to infect the Lifestream again.” 

Aerith threw her arms around her mother, tears in her eyes. Ifalna returned the hug and stroked her hair. 

“It’s okay, Petal. I’m okay. You’re okay.” Ifalna pulled back from the embrace. “But that…I did not expect that. I need… time to rest…” She continued to fade. 

“Mom…” Aerith couldn’t find the words. She still reeled from the horror of the attack. “What is she? How can we fight… that?”

“An ugly remnant. A foe. But one that we can beat.” Ifalna squeezed her tighter.

“Finish your memory, Petal.” She planted a kiss on the top of Aerith’s head, her lips barely felt. “I will return when I can.” 

Ifalna faded, the scent of pine needles and fresh snow lingering behind. 

Aerith’s head spun at the rapid sequence of events she had just experienced.

She was fighting on the ship with Nanaki. She felt the emergence of Jenova below deck. The aberration had somehow latched onto her mind. Then, it pushed her out of a memory, chasing her soul into the afterlife. 

And she said death wasn’t a refuge. 

Aerith shuddered at the thought of the calamity’s presence in the Lifestream. 

Geostigma…  

The word floated into her consciousness, a half-remembered nightmare from another life. 

Pieces of Aerith’s first life had trickled from Jenova through their connection. The creature knew what had happened before. Some part of it persisted between lifetimes.

Jenova could hunt for her across time, and only Ifalna’s timely intervention had saved her. But the action had cost her mother. Could she count on her again? Should she? And something about mirrors?

Too many questions. Not enough answers. 

Finish your memory, Petal . 

Aerith closed her eyes and felt the pull of her life path on the ocean. She settled back into the memory like trying to go back to sleep after a nightmare. 

***

The Shinra-8 plowed through the nighttime waters. A wary peace had settled over the vessel as its passengers tried to forget the chaos of a few hours earlier. Most had gone back to sleep. 

Aerith watched Nanaki limp to the second class stairwell. She opted to stay in the open air. The darkness below still reminded her of the presence that jammed splinters into her mind. 

Absently, she began righting the overturned lounge chairs on the sun deck. Many had been smashed into splinters during the fight, and she piled the wreckage in a corner out of the way. 

She wandered over to the port side, trying to find something else to keep her mind occupied. The fight had knocked the lights out, and it was hard to see details in the moonlight. She saw a shadow hunched under the railing, shivering. 

A blackcloak? It had the same pitiful posture, its arms wrapped around itself. Aerith adopted the same gentle posture she used earlier that day. She approached the figure slowly. It muttered something under its breath. That was new- most of them only moaned. 

“I wouldn’t know… I’ve never had motion sickness…”

He rocked back and forth as he talked to himself. 

“Backwater experts…”

“Hey buddy, you okay?” She walked closer and her breath caught in her throat. 

It was Cloud. 

He sat on the floor, oblivious to the monster blood that pooled around him. He rocked back and forth with his arms wrapped around his knees. He hummed quietly, a flat monotone that almost sounded like moans of pain. 

Aerith crouched next to him, monster blood staining her dress. She reached out to touch his back. He didn’t respond. Didn’t notice the touch at all. 

“Cloud…?” Aerith whispered. “Can you hear me?” 

Silence. 

She turned to get a better look at him. His expression was vacant, his eyes closed. She ran a hand through his hair and turned his face to her. 

“Cloud?” 

His eyes flickered open. They shone with a sickly green light, brighter than she had ever seen. His pupils had constricted to cat-like slits. They stared unfocused in a thousand-yard stare past her. 

Aerith gasped and pulled her hand back. The monsters- that presence below- something- must have stirred the Mako in Cloud’s blood. He looked as lost as the worst blackcloaks. His head lolled to the side. 

“I’m no fool,” he muttered. 

Aerith watched as he climbed to his feet, leaning on the railing for support. He looked ready to fall apart. 

She rose next to him and placed an arm over his shoulder to hold him in place. “Who said you were a fool?” Her words came out as a faint whisper. 

He stared out to the sea. If he heard her he made no sign to show it. “She wants… a reunion. For… him.” 

“Cloud, who wants a reunion?” Aerith tried to keep the concern out of her voice. “Who is ‘him?’”

He didn’t respond. His vacant eyes scanned the horizon. He continued his monotone, moaning hum through parted lips. 

“I’m gonna go get Tifa,” Aerith suggested. “And we’ll see if there’s a doctor on board.”

Maybe he hit his head in the fight. Maybe his healing factor kicked in too strong and overdosed him on Mako. Maybe-

Cloud’s hand shot out and grabbed Aerith’s upper arm. He pulled her within inches of his face, his eyes blazing. 

“Is this real?” 

Aerith tried to step back but found herself caught in the ex-SOLDIER’s superhuman grip. 

“Is this…now?” 

His pupils dilated and his eyes flickered in and out of focus. In and out of lucidity. 

“Am I…him?” His breathing became ragged and hoarse. “Or am I him ?” His knees buckled and Aerith grabbed him before he collapsed. She guided him carefully to the ground. “Or am I me?” 

He stared at Aerith without seeing her. “Can I be me?” he rasped. Desperation, fear, and loneliness flitted across his features. “Who is me?”

Aerith couldn’t respond. She had seen his headaches before. She knew about the times his mind wandered when the group talked about SOLDIER or Sephiroth. 

This…fog was worse than anything she’d seen before. 

Aerith took Cloud’s hand and pressed it between her own. “You’re Cloud,” she said simply. 

“I’m Cloud,” he repeated in a monotone. 

“You’re kind. And strong. And brave.” She stroked the back of his hand and peered into his eyes. They stared sightlessly ahead. 

“Kind. Strong. Brave.” 

“You’re on a ship with your friends. Tifa, Barret, Red, Aerith. You’re safe. It’s calm on the ship.” 

He shivered. “Aerith. Calm.” 

“It’s late. We need to rest before the day starts tomorrow.”

“Rest.” 

“Can you do that for me? Can you rest?” Aerith guided Cloud to one of the lounge chairs she had righted earlier. She folded his arms over his chest and hummed a gentle tune. A lullaby from her childhood- one Ifalna used on days with the worst tests. 

Cloud’s eyes flickered and closed. His ragged breathing smoothed. 

Aerith climbed into a chair next to him and shifted it closer, still humming her lullaby. Cloud inhaled, and his moaning hum faded away. 

After a few minutes, Aerith stopped her lullaby and rose, exhaustion washing over her. She needed to get to her bunk and sleep off the night’s trauma. 

She shifted out of her chair. 

“Aerith?” Cloud mumbled. By the looks of it, he was half asleep, but he sounded more like himself. Less lost. 

“Yeah, it’s me.” 

“Will you stay?” He sounded so small. So vulnerable. 

She sank back into her chair, smiling. “Yeah. I can stay.” 

He shifted in his chair and his arm fell off the side. Aerith reached for his hand to place it back on his chest. Before she could finish, he had interlaced his fingers with hers with a tender squeeze. 

“Just until the night’s over?” he asked. 

Aerith squeezed his hand back. “Sure, Cloud. Just until the night’s over.”

His head slumped as the last of the tension left his body. 

As Aerith drifted off to sleep, she heard Cloud repeating himself in his sleep. 

“Aerith…Calm…”

Chapter Text

Chapter 8: Perspectives

The Lifestream

Aerith pulled back from her memory of the Shinra-8 in disbelief. Jenova had seen her. Not her physical body on the sun deck, but her soul in the Lifestream. The calamity could reach across time and space- could reach across death- and speak to her. Taunt her. 

Hunt her.

She recalled feeling Jenova’s foul presence in the Lifestream. It used oily, fingerlike miasmas to worm their way through the afterlife. If the planet was a living being, then Jenova was an infection. A tumor. 

Shivering, she called out to Ifalna. “Mom?” Aerith reached out with her senses. She felt herself near the outskirts of Costa Del Sol: a pristine town blessedly free from a reactor. “It feels safe to be here now.” 

Ifalna manifested in slow pieces, like snowflakes landing on the surface of a lake. She was transparent, with sunken eyes and sallow skin. Still, she greeted her daughter with a smile. “Hello, Petal.” 

Aerith bounded over to her in concern, wrapping her arms around her. She felt lighter than she should have. Brittle. 

“What happened back there?” she whispered. “How could Jenova come here?” She recalled Ifalna banishing the alien with a flash of light. “How…did you send her away?”

Ifalna leaned into Aerith’s hug. The touch seemed to suffuse her with strength and presence, and some color returned to her face. “We know so little about our adversary,” she sighed. “Even after all this time.” 

She closed her eyes and squeezed Aerith. “One of the few things we do know is that Jenova can see the Planet as we see it. Space and time- life and death- mere abstractions to it. We also know it detests contentment. It feeds on despair and loss. So I confronted it with my feelings for you. Love and peace can drive it away. At least for a while.” 

“But Jenova could come back.”

“It could. Especially if you tread into memories where it was already there.” Ifalna floated away from Aerith and manifested the gnarled wand she used to banish the monster. “What happened as you crossed the ocean? How did it find you?”

“I’m not sure,” Aerith admitted. “I didn’t actually see its body. Cloud and the others fought it below decks.” She recounted her time on the ship to Ifalna, who listened with concern. 

“We landed at Costa Del Sol,” she finished. “There are parts of my memory there that are still blank. It’s funny. I feel so much warmth when I remember that place. Learning to swim, spending time with the others. Johnny’s Inn. Meeting Yuffie. Some of the best memories of my life are from that week.” 

“But there are gaps?” Ifalna coaxed. 

“Gaps… and darkness. I remember thinking some terrible things there. I was so angry… but I don’t know why now.” 

Ifalna began to fade, weariness coloring her voice. “You know what you have to do then, Petal. Find the source of that anger. It may help you in the journey to come…” 

The beach at Costa del Sol

Three days wasn’t enough time to see everything the seaside town had to offer. Aerith didn’t let that stop her from trying anyway. From the moment the group had disembarked, she was a whirlwind of enthusiasm, dragging the others in her wake. 

She had fresh seafood for the first time. She lounged on the beach. She got her first sunburn. She swam with Cloud. She shopped with Tifa. She played ball with Nanaki, and went sightseeing with Barret.

For three days, Aerith wasn’t the last Cetra and she wasn’t on a journey with a group of fugitives. She was… normal. A normal person taking vacation with her friends.

But normalcy couldn’t last. Her fate had to catch up to her some time.

So on the fourth day, the head of Shinra’s R&D department abducted her. 

The attack happened in the blink of an eye. She remembered walking onto the public beach with Tifa, strutting in new swimsuits. The two of them met up with Cloud, Nanaki, and Barret, excited for the day ahead. 

Then, they heard something about a “Shinra VIP” in the private cabanas, and she saw Professor Hojo. He leered at a group of blackcloaks on the beach. 

Hojo exchanged words with the group, then summoned some kind of weapon from the shallows.

Aerith followed her memory from the Lifestream. It was hard to track. She kept watching the scene play out from outside herself, drifting behind her body like a ghost. 

There’s no reactor here, she thought. No Jenova . Why is it so hard to follow this?  

Hojo’s creation rumbled out of the ocean, and seawater streamed off of it. The weapon looked like an enormous squid, with a large hollow cavity near the head. Monsters- the same kind that attacked the Shinra 8 just days before- streamed out of the mech’s cargo hold. They ran into the blackcloaks and transformed the men into demons. 

Aerith watched herself fly into battle with Barret. She drifted behind her past self, trying to regain her own perspective. Sparks and bullets kicked up sand as tourists fled in a panic. 

To her right, Nanaki and Tifa engaged another cluster of fiends. Aerith turned, disoriented, from watching herself. She saw Cloud leap from the cabana. He grabbed a nearby umbrella as a weapon and dashed into the fray. 

He hesitated, and Aerith watched the sky split. Her ears began to ring.

Behind her, the past Aerith stood back to back with Barret, fending off Hojo’s creatures. In front of her, Cloud froze as his eyes darted back and forth. Tifa and Red to his right, Aerith and Barret to his left. 

He bolted toward Aerith, somersaulting between her and a mechanical tentacle. 

And then, impossibly, he disappeared. 

The ringing in Aerith’s ears drew to a crescendo as she watched the split in the sky tear the beach in two. Her vision fuzzed and warped, and she saw two versions of the beach overlapping. Two worlds occupying the same space. Two fights playing out at the same time, in the same time.

Still incorporeal, Aerith drifted away from her counterpart. This time, she watched Cloud bolt toward Tifa and Nanaki. He drove his umbrella through the chest of a monster. Above him, the sky twisted and shimmered in impossible colors. Aerith felt herself pulled back to her past self’s body. 

Aerith gripped her head between her hands and forced herself to focus. What really happened that day?  

More importantly, what was happening to her now? 

Did Cloud run to Aerith and Barret, or Tifa and Nanaki? 

Or, somehow, did he run to both? 

Aerith’s vision flickered, out of focus, as she watched two fights play out. In one, Cloud battled alongside Aerith. In the other, he fought back-to-back with Tifa. 

They can’t both be true , Aerith told herself. Still, she watched the impossibility unfold. 

In the first fight, Hojo deployed a carrier drone that abducted Nanaki and Tifa. They froze, and the drone tucked them into the larger machine’s cargo hold. 

At the same time, Hojo’s drone grabbed Aerith and Barret in the second fight instead.

Aerith felt her spirit pulled into the cargo bay alongside her physical body. She fought the tugging and floated free. She had to understand what was happening, and limiting her point of view wouldn’t help her. 

Her head throbbed as her mind tried to parse the chaos. Above her, the sky swirled and churned as ribbons of light danced overhead. 

In the original fight, Aerith and Barret trained their fire on the squid-like mech. Next to them, Cloud swatted down more drones. The sounds of Nanaki and Tifa pounding from the inside of their prison echoed through the beach. 

In the second fight, Tifa and Nanaki leapt onto the mech and tore at its hold’s hatches. From the shore, Cloud swiped at its tentacles with his improvised weapon. Inside, Aerith and Barret tried to fight their way out of the cell.

Both fights proceeded with frantic energy. Cloud danced between enemies, striking out with abandon. The mech released more drones, and the free combatants fought to rescue their captured friends. 

In both versions of the brawl, their efforts were futile. Hojo continued to deploy carrier drones, and Cloud couldn’t keep up with their onslaught. 

A pair of drones froze Barret and Aerith in the first fight. They joined Tifa and Nanaki in the mech’s brig. In the second battle, Tifa and Nanaki fell to the drones, joining Barret and Aerith. 

The throbbing in Aerith’s head relented as the two fights… converged into each other. 

The pair of Clouds started to make the same moves and whirled into identical positions. The two mechs he fought did the same, and the pair of hazy fights Aerith watched crystalized into one. 

In both conflicts the outcome was the same. Cloud fought alone as his four friends struggled within Hojo’s machine. 

The tug on Aerith’s physical body redoubled. Aerith couldn’t drift untethered through the memory anymore. It was like the reconverging of reality made it easier for her spirit to know what space to occupy. 

From the shore, Cloud still fended off the mech’s attacks. Aerith, anchored by her body, flitted closer to the containment cell in the mech’s core. She phased through the wall and saw Tifa, Barret, Nanaki, and herself suspended within. They struggled against their bonds, trying to get leverage to free themselves.

Aerith watched her living counterpart pull against her shackles. She squeezed her eyes shut, straining. She saw herself slump in exhaustion, and her eyes flickered open. 

The living Aerith gasped as she stared right into her own ghost’s eyes. Her mouth opened in a noiseless scream.

Aerith- the dead Aerith- froze, and time seemed to stand still. 

Her head pounded. Did I… see myself then ? 

A literal out-of-body experience. 

Aerith stared into her living self’s eyes and slammed her index finger against her lips in a ‘hush’ gesture. The living Aerith didn’t make a sound, but she did run her eyes up and down her spirit’s form. 

Aerith felt a mental vertigo that made her head spin. She saw the scene from her point of view at the same time her own memory of the event reformed. The past and present intertwined as she watched herself… watch herself. 

Her living self squinted her eyes and shook her head. At the same time, Aerith remembered thinking she must have hit her head during the fight and started hallucinating. The memory sprung, fully formed, back into Aerith’s recollection of the fight.

Still, Aerith persisted from within the Lifestream. She couldn’t vanish. She couldn’t disappear back into her past self’s point of view like she normally did. She just… lingered in front of herself.

The past Aerith looked around the brig. She tried to see if there was a ghost Barret, or ghost Tifa around. Maybe it was some side effect of Hojo’s prison? 

The Lifestream’s Aerith remembered trying to calm her racing thoughts amid the chaos of the fight and her imprisonment. Was it a vision from the Planet? Some sort of spell? Maybe it was a vision of one of her ancestors with a strong family resemblance. 

None of those ideas felt right. It was like a gut feeling. Or maybe it was a long-lost memory, taken by the Whispers, that suddenly clicked back into place.

Her living self’s eyes slowly widened as she grasped the enormity of what she saw. 

A translucent reflection of herself, bathed in green energy. A signature glow of the Lifestream.

A vision of herself, wearing clothes she had today. With a face no older than her own. With hair barely longer than the length it was now. 

Aerith was staring at her own ghost. 

She was going to die. 

She was going to die soon. 

To her credit, she didn’t scream or cry out. From the Lifestream, Aerith watched a thousand emotions ripple over her past face. Disbelief, anger, regret, fear, sadness. 

Despair.

Her living self paled, and the spark left her eyes as she slumped against her bindings. The others were still too preoccupied with their own escape to notice. 

The most profound sense of loss Aerith had ever felt bubbled up in her own stomach. She felt the emotion at the same time she felt the memory of the emotion. Tears fell from her face and from the living Aerith’s face at the same time. 

The sense of loss pulsed like a wound in her chest. This awful feeling was the root of the fog Aerith felt from the Lifestream. 

This terrible revelation had formed a fence around her memories of Costa Del Sol, fraying the connection between her spirit and her body. 

Both Aeriths shook, trying not to cry out. Don’t worry the others. Even then, Aerith couldn’t let the others know how she felt. 

From the Lifestream, Aerith tried to get her past self’s attention. She looked up, glancing at the others. They didn’t see Aerith’s spirit. 

Past-Aerith stayed silent, mouthing the words how long? to herself. Aerith shook her head. Knowing wouldn’t do her any good. Past-Aerith looked to the side, crestfallen. 

From her bindings, her lips moved into another silent question. The others? She hesitated. Cloud? Aerith wavered. How much should she tell? How much did she tell the first time? Could talking to herself now change the past? Or was she just repeating what happened the first time? 

Before she could answer, the mech around them shuddered. Beams of light pierced the walls from the outside. Reality snapped back into focus as two lingering worlds merged. Aerith peered into a single memory again. She plunged into her own body, exhausted from the fight.

***

Some time later, the wreckage of Hojo’s machine smoldered on the beach. Hojo himself had wisely retreated to a Shinra safehouse before Cloud could get his hands on him. 

From what Aerith could gather, the young ninja that had tailed them since Junon stepped up to help Cloud. Using some sort of Wutaian mysticism, she had made copies of the local innkeeper as a distraction. Then, she laid into the occupied machine with Cloud until it overloaded. 

Aerith wished she could care more about the fight, or how the others were doing. As soon as she realized no one was seriously injured, she wandered off to the edge of the beach. She needed to collect her thoughts. 

She had seen herself while captured. Transparent. Floating. Surrounded by the same green Lifestream glow as Elmyra’s husband, when his spirit came to Sector Five. The same green glow as her mother, when she appeared in the abandoned church. She didn’t like admitting- even to herself- how often she saw those phantoms when walking around. 

How often she saw the spirits of the dead. 

And to see herself in the same way- to know what that meant for her- made her angrier than she could put into words. She felt impotent in the face of an inevitable end. 

In Midgar, she must have known that she was going to die. She probably knew where and when it would happen, given how much she once seemed to know about Nanaki’s own fate. Suddenly, so much of her behavior in the city made sense. 

If she knew where and when she would die, she would charge bravely into fights in Sector Six. Nothing could happen to her.

She would surrender to the Turks and go to Shinra tower, knowing she would get out.

She would visit Cloud in a dream. She would tell him not to fall in love with a doomed woman.

But her epiphany led to more questions than answers. Why would fighting the Arbiter have taken that knowledge away? Did the Whispers do it on purpose? Was Sephiroth involved? Why could she see her own spirit if she was still alive?

The back of her head pounded as she mulled over the tangle of impossibilities in front of her. 

“Now that’s a stormy expression for someone that just got rescued.” 

Aerith blinked as she came back to the real world. The afternoon sun was beginning to sink into evening behind her. How long had she stood alone on the shore? 

A short, willowy figure in an orange bathing suit bounced up beside her. The ninja from Junon. 

“Gotta say,” she continued, “the grumpy look doesn’t suit you that well. You must not frown often.” 

“I don’t,” Aerith replied. “Just… dealing with a lot right now.” 

“Join the club, sis.” The girl stuck out her hand and grinned. “Yuffie Kisaragi. World’s greatest ninja.” 

Aerith couldn’t help but smile at the young girl’s bravado. “Aerith Gainsborough,” she answered. She shook Yuffie’s hand and paused in thought. “World’s… greatest florist?”

“Florist, huh?” Yuffie stuck her hands on her hips and paced around Arith, examining her. Realizing she was still in her bathing suit, Aerith blushed at the scrutiny. 

“What kind of florist walks around with a platoon’s worth of materia set into her jewelry?” 

A platoon’s worth? “I-”

“And hangs out with a glow-eye and a pair of terrorists from the wanted posters?”

Glow-eye? Is that slang for SOLDIERs? “Well-”

“And almost gets kidnapped by a Shinra bigwig who seems to know her by name? ”

Bigwig? “If you’d just-” 

“Weren’t you on the platform with President Shinra after the parade?” Yuffie’s eyes widened. 

“Are you a ninja too? Man, florist would be such a good cover story. I’ve been trying to think of a good cover story but nothing seems to fit, since I’m so young, you know? And besides, when you look like you’re from Wutai everyone just kind of assumes you’re a ninja anyway which feels kind of racist but, like, they’re not wrong , you know? So I guess you just kind of lean into it but then that defeats the whole point of being clandestine so I’m back to needing a cover story.” 

Aerith’s shoulders slumped as she gave up trying to get a word in edgewise. Yuffie began taking laps around her as she chattered on and on. Aerith wondered if Yuffie would stop to take a breath or just collapse mid-sentence. She talked about her infiltration of Midgar and her journey out of the city for what felt like hours. Aerith shook her head as she realized she’d zoned out of Yuffie’s story for a few minutes. 

“...so that’s when I got this Moogle outfit because then I could at least have a disguise , and a disguise isn’t as good as a cover story but at least you can hide your face a little bit without looking like a hooligan in a mask, plus I could hide my weapons and materia under it- not like I have a lot of weapons or materia really just the one throwing star and an Assess orb, which brings me back to my first question?”

It took a few seconds for Aerith to realize Yuffie had stopped running her mouth. She stood,waiting, her hands on her hips. 

“Come again?”

Yuffie huffed and repeated herself at a glacial pace: “How. Does. A. Florist. Get. So. Much. Materia? Do you have a plug? Could you introduce me? I promise I’ll be cool.”

Aerith shook her head as the onslaught of words slowed to something that resembled normal conversation. “No plug. We buy most of it in towns. And we find some in abandoned Shinra worksites here and there.” 

Yuffie’s eyes widened. “You can just buy the stuff here?” She scoffed. “But I guess you have to have a Midgar ID to get the vending machines to work.” 

Aerith thought back to the pile of fake IDs that Jessie had made for AVALANCHE. Barret had wisely swiped all of them before leaving the city. That allowed them to trade at weapon shops and materia stores without a paper trail for Shinra to follow. Best not to let anyone know about that little secret. 

“Uh, yeah,” Aerith replied. “Gotta have Midgar IDs. Which we all have.” She needed to change the subject before she said something that would really implicate the group.

“But we’re boring, honest. Just a group of friends that made Shinra upset and needed to get out of Midgar.” She shrugged with what she thought was a casual air. “Happens all the time.” 

Yuffie nodded in understanding. “Oh yeah, that Johnny dude said the same thing happened to him and he had to skip town.” 

“Exactly! In fact he left a few weeks before we did.” Aerith glanced back at the direction of his new inn. “I heard he helped us get out of Hojo’s clutches this afternoon.”

Yuffie snorted. “Please. I did all the work. He was just the decoy. I made a bunch of clones of him to distract the robo-squid and then blew it up. He didn’t help , he was just more convenient to copy than driftwood.” 

“You… made a bunch of clones of him?” Aerith didn’t know any materia or piece of Shinra tech that could make clones of something. Much less clones that could move and act independently.

Yuffie yawned. “Yeah, clones.” She acted like she was talking about something as mundane as tying her shoes. “Wutai party trick. I can make clones of anything. People, trees, even myself. Handy in a fight to have two versions of yourself bouncing around. At least, it is once you get used to processing two points of view at once.” 

Aerith jerked back at Yuffie’s last line. 

“You can see two points of view at once? And process all that information?” 

Could she do the same with her ghost? See through two sets of eyes and glean something from her counterpart?

Yuffie smirked in pride. “That part’s not a Wutai party trick. Took years to figure out.” She stretched her arms out, subtly flexing her muscles. “Yeah, it’s pretty handy. I can split myself into two people for a few seconds and keep the memories of both Yuffies afterwards.”

“Could you teach me?” Aerith grabbed the younger woman’s arm, incapable of keeping the eagerness out of her voice. “How to clone myself?” That part didn’t matter. The ‘clone’ was already out there. 

But the other part- “How can I remember two perspectives at once?” She dropped all pretenses of aloofness. Maybe the ninja’s techniques were exactly what she needed to get her memories of the future back. 

Yuffie’s eyes gleamed greedily in the late afternoon sunlight. “That depends,” she began. “Wutai secrets don’t come cheap.” 

Aerith squeezed Yuffie’s arm. “I can pay. Name it.” 

“Hmm…” Yuffie tapped her finger against her chin. “How about a lesson for a lesson? You let me travel with you and show me how you got so good with all that materia.” She ogled Aerith’s jewelry. “Maybe you let me practice with it too.” 

Travel with us? “I can’t make promises on behalf of the others. But I can put in a good word for you. Try and convince them.” 

Yuffie rubbed the back of her neck. “I dunno… a good word for a top-tier mystical secret doesn’t seem fair…”

She glanced down at Aerith’s jewelry with a wistful sigh. “Maybe a little bit of collateral could help.”

Aerith took her staff out and popped a green orb out of it. “Quake. Refined it myself to the highest level.” She couldn’t stop the shaking in her voice. “Please.” 

The gem disappeared from her hand so fast she didn’t even see Yuffie’s hand move. “Deal.” She must have seen the tension leave Aerith’s body. Her expression changed from materia-lust to one approaching pity. 

“Does learning how to copy yourself really mean that much to you?” 

Not the copying. Just the seeing.

Aerith swallowed. “It could.” She looked out at the ocean. “I need to believe that it could.”

Yuffie didn’t have a quip for Aerith’s sincerity. It seemed she didn’t know how to respond to that kind of intensity.

“You want this pretty bad.” It wasn’t a question.

Aerith nodded, reaching for Yuffie’s hand. She realized she still held her staff with her other hand.  

“I know that look,” Yuffie muttered. “This is something you want. But you don’t really want it. It’s a means to an end.” She cocked her head and squinted at Aerith. “What is it you really want?”

Aerith swallowed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” She thought back to how easily she had calmed Marlene and Nanaki in Midgar. How her knowledge of the future- her missing second sight- brought peace to people that needed it. 

She couldn’t get Yuffie on her side the same way. She wasn’t a seer anymore. She was just Aerith. 

“I want to help my friends,” she said simply. “I want to be stronger. Need to be stronger. I would die for them. I would.” She looked down at Yuffie’s hand in hers. “But I don’t want to die if there’s another way.”

Yuffie pursed her lips. “Friends shouldn’t have to sacrifice themselves for friends.” She looked down at Aerith’s staff and started to reach for it before stopping herself. “You fight with that thing?” 

Aerith glanced at her staff and nodded. “It’s a good weapon.”

Yuffie ran her eyes along it. “The best people fight with a staff,” she mumbled. “You just want to keep your friends safe?”

Aerith nodded, not trusting herself to say more.

“Okay. Fine. I’ll help.”

“Just like that?” 

“Just like that. How about we say I owe a staff-user a favor and leave it there?”

Aerith bowed her head in gratitude. “I can leave it there.”

Yuffie sat down, cross-legged, in the sand and patted the ground next to her. 

“Then get ready for lesson one. Before you can think about copying yourself, or seeing what the copy sees, you gotta get in touch with your body. You have to be serene. Composed. Here- breathe in and breathe out like this, and then cast your mind out…”

***

Hours passed as Yuffie and Aerith sat in their secluded nook of the beach. By the end of their session, Aerith’s back ached and her head pounded. Yuffie looked no worse for wear when she abruptly clambered to her feet. She began walking to the stairs, humming to herself. 

“Wait!” Aerith stumbled after her. “That’s it? You just stand up and leave without a ‘good job, lesson over?’” 

“What, you want homework or something?” Yuffie scowled. “This stuff takes time. You did all you could today. Learn to listen to your body. Focus on your breathing. Keep your inner eye peeled for the second perspective.”

She rolled her shoulders. “Technically, you can see through the eyes of anyone. Doesn’t have to be a clone of yourself. But that’s super mega advanced ninjutsu. The more similar your target is to you, the easier it’ll be to connect to their perspective.”

Yuffie started walking away again. “You can’t make a copy of yourself like I can yet, so we’ve gotta focus on groundwork first. Casting your mind out, trying to sense other points of view.” She jerked her head up to a nearby restaurant. “Besides, I’ve gotta pee.”

That's the only part I need anyway . No need to clone herself, Aerith reminded herself. Just reach out to the 'clone' that was already out there. How different could it be?

Aerith watched the ninja disappear up the accessway stairs. As she rounded the corner, she called out. “Lemme know when you’re heading out of Costa- remember: stay serene!” 

Alone again. 

The sun began to disappear behind the buildings of Costa’s town, and it bathed the beach in rays of gold. Aerith took her shoes off and wandered into the surf. The water was warm and the breeze was cool. The chaos of the earlier fight made no lasting impact on the little strand. 

She gazed out at the water and resumed the breathing exercises Yuffie showed her. She tried opening her inner eye, reaching out the same way she did when trying to commune with the Planet. 

“Are… you there?” Aerith spoke softly. Her lips barely moved. It wouldn’t do to have anyone see her talking to herself. 

“Are you always watching me? Or do I have to call you?”

She clasped her hands in front of her, straining to hear or see anything. Even the voices of the Planet felt distant for the moment. 

“You… looked a lot like me. No wrinkles. Same outfit.” Aerith tried picturing the specter of herself. Maybe focusing would help. “The other, um, spirits… that I see tend to look the way that they did when they passed. So if you look like me, I guess that means that it happens soon.” 

Gentle waves lapped at her ankles as she waded further into the surf. The tide seemed to beckon her to move forward.

“I’m listening. I’m trying.”

The breeze shifted and tugged at her hair. Her braid twisted in the wind. Aerith reached for it and her fingers grazed the orb of materia she kept tied behind her ribbon. Idly, she pulled it out and studied it in the fading sunlight. 

No crystals or facets lined the interior, and she could see through it like a lens. Before her fight with the Arbiter, it shone like pale moonlight. Now, it looked like a cheap glass bauble. 

“Is it because I couldn’t keep this safe? Was I supposed to know how to use it?” She squeezed the sphere between her hands, half expecting it to crack. “Is dying my punishment for letting it go dark?”

…isn’t a punishment …

Aerith froze.

Somewhere between the murmuring waves and the rustling breeze, she heard a voice. 

Her voice. 

She redoubled the meditation techniques Yuffie showed her. As she slowed her breath, she asked her question again. “Is dying my punishment for letting Mom’s materia go dark?”

Death isn’t a punishment, silly . 

Aerith tried to slow her pounding heart. Stay serene. Don’t lose the voice. Focus on her second self.

“I don’t want to die.” 

Everybody dies . 

She huffed. She could see why Cloud got frustrated when she said that. 

What makes you think that death is the end, though?

“It’s an end,” Aerith whispered to herself. “It’s a fork in the road. The dead go on one path, the living stay on theirs. You still have to say goodbye.” 

Oh? You’ve never taken a different route than a friend and said “see you later?” Can’t different paths end up at the same destination?

“Now you’re just being obtuse.” 

I’m being cryptic and mysterious . Was her other self… giggling?

I can’t tell you too much. Just like you couldn’t tell them too much, back in Midgar . 

Aerith gazed into the water around her. The water glowed from the sunset, but she thought she saw another faint light shining under the waves. She peered into it. “What can you tell me?”

I can tell you you’re not as alone as you think. And you won’t be alone when it matters.

I’ve been there. 

I’ll be there. 

Learn to trust yourself, because that’s how you learn to trust me.

The water shimmered, and for a moment Aerith caught her reflection in the waves shift. A… different Aerith gazed back at her for a split second and winked. 

You’re so kind to everyone else. You could be kind to yourself too, you know. You can make different choices this time. 

Loving yourself could be one of them. There’s more time than you think between now and the final goodbye. Don’t worry about it until it comes.

The tide receded, and the image rippled and faded back into her own reflection. The presence Aerith could sense faded. 

“Love myself,” Aerith breathed. She turned over the advice to herself. Make different choices. Don’t worry until it comes. 

So it would come. Her other self did nothing to imply her death was anything other than inevitable. 

Her stomach soured and settled into a pit. It wasn’t fair. Decades trapped in a Shinra lab or in the slums under Shinra surveillance. She got a tiny taste of freedom and the Planet would kill her for it. What had these past few months been in the wake of everything that came before them? 

“We’ve come so far… but it still feels like Midgar’s right behind us,” she mumbled to herself.

She heard a pair of footsteps sloshing in the shallows behind her. Cloud stepped into her field of vision and paused, waiting for an invitation to get closer. 

Aerith glanced back at the private villa where Hojo had unleashed his machine. Funny to think being captured would only be the second most memorable part of the day. 

Cloud grunted and followed her eyes to Hojo’s empty seat. “You have history with him.” 

Aerith nodded. “We were his prisoners. Me and my mom- Ifalna.” 

She looked at Cloud over her shoulder. He looked back into her eyes. “He kidnapped us because she was a Cetra- a ‘specimen’ for his experiments.”

At that moment, Hojo became the proxy for everything she was feeling. The inevitability of her death. The uncertainty of her fate. Her inability to commune with the Planet like a proper Cetra. She channeled all her helplessness, and rage, and fear, into the awful scientist and his lab. 

“After what he did he did to her… After all the pain and horror he put us through… I hate him.” 

She wanted to hate herself. Hate her own powerlessness to change fate. But she tried- she really tried- to heed her other self’s advice. 

You could be kind to yourself too, you know . 

“Sometimes, I imagine the things I’d do to him if I got the chance…” She clenched her fists. The things I’d do to him if it gave me any kind of answer…

“I start thinking things so dark and ugly… that it scares me.”  

Cloud started to reach for her hand, then glanced back at the others sitting on the beach. He pulled his hand back. Still, he smiled. 

“They’re just thoughts,” he replied. “Let ‘em be dark and ugly.” He looked up at her, the mako in his eyes shimmering as his smile widened. “You’re not.” 

Aerith tilted her head. Cloud didn’t smile like that. For a split second, his smile and clear eyes reminded her of another SOLDIER. Another chipper voice that always tried to cheer her up. 

One that she hadn’t heard in five years. 

Aerith looked at him with his chest puffed out and the easy expression on his face. “You think so?” 

Cloud stepped toward her. “What I’m trying to say is… worry about the future when it comes. You’ll know what to do.” 

Aerith looked past him, out at the water, and smiled. As Cloud got closer, he seemed to deflate. His eyes lost their twinkle and his movements became less animated. Aerith didn’t know how to describe it, but he started to move like Cloud again. Less like… the other SOLDIER.

“And whatever you decide,” he finished in a more somber tone- a more Cloudlike tone- “I’m with you.” 

She gazed at Cloud- the real Cloud- that had reappeared. “I appreciate it,” she admitted. 

Aerith began walking back into the water, near where she had heard her own voice in the waves. She beckoned to Cloud. “Shall we?”

They waded through the water together. Aerith reflected on her other self’s words, and how they mirrored Cloud’s own comment. 

“No need to worry about the future till it comes,” she echoed. “Not until the moment arrives.” She looked down into the water, where for the briefest second she had seen the other her. The confident her. The smiling her. “And when it does come, I’ll be counting on you.” 

Cloud crossed his arms in satisfaction. “Good.” 

“Not you,” Aerith smiled. “That was to her- my future self.” She glanced at the calm water and slowed her breathing, feeling for her presence. “Can’t say when you’ll meet,” she said to herself, “but trust me, you’ll love her.” 

She winked. 

“Just you wait.” 

Chapter Text

Two kinds of fuel

The Lifestream

“I don’t remember having that conversation with myself,” Aerith said. “After Yuffie’s lesson, I remember reaching out to my ghost. And I talked to someone. But the ‘me’ from then didn’t talk to this ‘me.’”

Ifalna drifted in the emerald tide. “It’s a good thing spirits can’t get headaches. Trying to keep track of fractured time in the living world would give me a migraine.” 

Aerith appreciated her mother’s levity. It stopped her from going to dark places. Without the older Cetra, Aerith knew she’d already have lost herself in the afterlife. 

“So there’s me, here in the Lifestream.” Aerith counted off her fingers. “And there’s me traveling with the others. And I’m reliving her memories in the past.” She raised a third finger. “And there’s a… third me that talked to traveling me?” 

“You know Petal, you said you had two sets of memories when we floated through the Grasslands. And the second set of memories were slippery and shadowy.” 

“I’d thought about that,” Aerith agreed. “The… first me. Could she still be out there?” 

Ifalna hummed. “It’s worth thinking about. But all in due time. What happened after you left the beach?” 

“Nothing to do with my visions,” Aerith admitted. “But I remember an important lesson.” 

The Corel Lowlands

The wetlands outside of Costa town were sweltering. Without the sea breeze, every shred of heat and humidity in the region settled in still air like a sauna. Aerith’s hair and clothes clung to her skin with sweat. From time to time, she glanced at her peripheral vision, trying to see if her phantom self was around. She never saw her, or felt the Planet’s presence. 

Carving their way through the wilderness beyond the well-manicured resort was hell. The road wasn’t paved and often disappeared altogether. Thick copses of coastal trees often lined their path, limiting visibility. Their branches intertwined into a warren tailor-made for birds and insects. The latter nipped at Aerith incessantly.

If there was any solace to their situation, it was that Aerith didn’t seem to suffer alone. Cloud and Tifa, native to the chilly Nibel highlands, needed plenty of water breaks. Nanaki huffed about bug bites, and Yuffie just liked complaining. 

Barret, on the other hand, was a different sort of irate altogether. 

The moment the party learned that the blackcloaks made for North Corel, a shadow had fallen over the big man. He’d stopped speaking, and a vein often pulsed in his forehead. Any noise from someone else could send him stomping away from the group, where he'd trek in silence for hours. 

Aerith knew Barret came from one of the mountain towns in coal country. What she didn't know was how to bring it up as long as his temper simmered so close to a boiling point. 

Early into the second day of their trek, Yuffie began to complain again. 

“Someone remind me why we didn’t rent Chocobos from town again? Going through a rainforest on foot sucks.” 

Cloud answered without looking back. “Too dangerous. Lots of monsters around, and the foliage is too thick for a Chocobo to sprint away. That’s how we dealt with monsters in other regions.”

“So we hop off the birds when we’re attacked and dig in for a fight!” Yuffie offered. “Can’t see how trying to fight with aching feet is much better.” She stopped to adjust the tops of her shoes. “Geez, my feet hurt.” 

“We’ll get you some hiking boots the next time we can shop,” Tifa offered. Unlike Cloud, she did turn around to cha . Walking backward was an impressive feat, considering the number of roots underfoot. “Aerith and I got a pair in Kalm. Makes all the difference on long marches.” 

“Yeah, you may actually come to like walking!” Aerith chimed in. 

“Or you could try walking barefoot,” Nanaki sniffed. “I still think that’s the best idea for building resilience. And moving without making a sound.” 

“I’m not having this conversation again.”

Tifa tsked. “Oh hush, Cloud.”

“You hush,” he shot back.

Aerith grinned. Whatever tension between the two of them seemed to have evaporated. They bantered like old friends again. Lately, there was an easiness around the whole group. Conversation came easily and friendly jabs between each other were common. 

Except for Barret. 

Red carried on. “Look, all I’m saying is callouses on the bottom of your feet can only-”

From the front of the group, Barret roared and spun on his heel. He brought his arm to a firing position and emptied an entire clip into the treeline behind them. He continued to scream as he launched waves of fireballs into the branches above them. The materia set into his arm glowed dangerously- a mirror to his rage.

As the gun in his arm clicked empty, a silence fell over the thicket. Aerith heard Barret grind his teeth as the foliage around them smoldered. 

After what felt like an eternity, a pair of dead Spearhawks fell from the trees. They were larger than any of the hunting birds the party had seen so far, and bullet holes riddled their corpses.

With a short grunt, Barret turned and put his sunglasses on. “Swoop season,” he rumbled.

“Birds as big as grownass men looking to feed their chicks. Saberhawks and Zus. They’re everywhere.” He tromped along the path as everyone else stood still, stunned. “So. It pays to keep. quiet. around. here.” 

The rest of the party followed him deeper into the forest without a word. 

***

They made camp that night at a Chocobo Stop west of Costa town. Stark mountaintops peaked from beyond the lush treeline. Tropical air mixed with dusty wind blowing from the northwest. Aerith found the clashing environments disorienting.

Earlier that day, they’d come across a bafflingly located gym in the middle of the jungle. It was full of bodybuilders from Wall Market, of all places. Cloud had some history with them- no doubt from the Corneo job. They picked up some extra work there before continuing their journey. 

Tifa, who Cloud had roped into the job, had already turned in for the night. Muttering something about “never doing sit-ups again,” she disappeared into the tent alone. A few minutes later, she started snoring. 

Aerith and Nanaki set up the campfire while walking on eggshells. Barret's outburst that morning still soured the group’s mood. Yuffie had disappeared into the woods to hunt for dinner a few hours earlier. 

She came back with a brace of rabbits in each hand, oblivious to the tension in the air. “Hey, you’ve already got a camp set up! Let me skin these and we can get cooking.” 

She approached the fire and tossed a materia crystal at Barret, who loomed at the other end of camp. “Couldn’t find a chill pill in the woods for the big guy, but this is the next best thing.” She grinned. “Sleep materia! Can’t be pissy if you’re unconscious. Why don’t you do us all a favor and call it an early night?”

Barret caught the orb and growled. He squeezed it with so much force that Aerith worried it might crack, but he didn’t respond to the jibe. Instead, he started pacing around the perimeter of the campsite.

Unphased, Yuffie strutted in front of the tent and balked. “That has got to be the shittiest tent I have ever seen in my life. What, did you abduct a middle schooler and force him to pitch it?”

She tugged on a loose cord and it collapsed. Tifa woke with a yelp, and cursed as she tried to sit up. “My abs…”

“Yeah, your abs are what must hurt the most, Miss Back-Pain.” Yuffie had already started reassembling the tent with Tifa inside it. She moved quickly, setting some rigging in very correct-looking places. She placed stakes and poles in a deliberate pattern before tightening the tarp. The tent rose, and looked... palatial in contrast to Cloud's earlier setup. 

As Yuffie put the finishing touches on the tent, Cloud returned with water from a nearby stream. He paled when he saw Yuffie’s work. He stared for a moment, then choked out “nice tent” before going over to the fire to help cook. Yuffie shot Aerith a glance, and Aerith winked. “I’ll tell you later,” she promised. 

Aerith and Cloud handled the cooking as they crouched around the fire. She gave him a meaningful look, then darted her eyes over to Barret. It felt too risky to say anything about him out loud. 

Cloud glanced at Barret, still pacing with the sleep materia clenched in his fist. 

Shifting his gaze from Barret back to Aerith, he mouthed, “missing Marlene?” 

Aerith shook her head. “Something else.” She whispered in the softest voice she could manage. “He doesn’t wanna go home.” 

“So ask him to stay here and we’ll pick him up when we know the next place to go.” 

Aerith rolled her eyes. “Or we could see if there’s something we could do to help him.”

Cloud blew air out of his nose. “Why would we do that?”

“Because friends help each other?”

“If he’s my friend, the certificate must’ve gotten lost in the mail.” 

Aerith raised a finger to retort when Barret began yelling from the other side of the campsite. 

“SHIT! FUCK!”

He dashed to the fire, his feet pounding like a one-man stampede. He threw his sunglasses off, his eyes wild. They darted back and forth, searching the ground around them. 

Cloud stepped in front of Aerith, placing himself between her and Barret. “Hey. You wanna take it easy?”

“Have you seen them? Are they around here?” He fell to his hands and knees and crawled along the ground. The fingers of his working hand patted at the dirt frantically. 

“Seen what?” Aerith stepped around Cloud, giving his shoulder a quick squeeze. She couldn’t help but notice how often he put himself in front of her when something seemed dangerous.

She knelt to look Barret in the eye. “B?”

He glanced up at her, panic written across his face. “My dog tags! They must have fallen off today! I reached for them and they weren’t there!” 

Cloud snorted. “Your dog tags?” 

Yuffie and Nanaki padded over to investigate the commotion. 

Barret had already resumed his search, letting Cloud’s tone slide. “I remember checking ‘em at that gym today. So they must have come off this afternoon. Before we made camp.” He nodded. “Only a few miles to cover.” 

He grabbed a lantern from his pack and lit it, striking off on the path they came from. 

Aerith jogged after him. “Barret, wait! What's going on?” 

He didn’t slow down. “Dog tags. Lost ‘em. Gotta get ‘em back.” 

She rolled her eyes. “I gathered that much.”

He ground his teeth. “Then lemme get out there and look.”

“And it can’t wait until morning?”

“Nope.” 

“And we can’t get you a new pair somewhere?”

He stopped to inhale. He clenched his fist, and with shaking breaths growled “No, we can’t.” 

Aerith glanced back at the campfire. Cloud, Yuffie, and Nanaki huddled around it. Concern darkened their faces. 

“Wait here,” she told Barret. To his credit, he stayed where he was. 

She jogged back to the others. “Barret’s lost something important. He thinks it's between here and the gym we found. I’m gonna go help him look for it. Cloud, can you take watch tonight?”

“It’s your turn tonight. You ought to stay here.” He crossed his arms. “ In fact, we should all stay here and let him get lost in the jungle.” 

He glanced out at the dark path beyond the campsite. “Why are you going off on a snipe hunt in the middle of the night?”

Now Aerith felt like grinding her teeth. “Because. friends. help. each. other.” She gave him a meaningful look. 

Cloud sighed, but didn't fight back. “Just… stay safe, okay?” 

She nodded. She grabbed her staff and another lantern, then set off to rejoin Barret in the dark. 

***

Aerith learned that hiking at night was terrifying. Beyond her flickering lantern light was nothing but inky blackness and eerie silence. From time to time, a rustling branch or snapping stick shattered the quiet, causing her to freeze in place. Every noise made her wait for an ambush that never came. 

The night wasn’t much cooler than the day, and she still felt like she was swimming- not walking- through the muggy air. In front of her, Barret forged ahead in silence, pausing every few steps to check the dirt.

“So…” Aerith wracked her brain for a way to break the silence.

She hated the kind of quiet that could settle between two people like this. Things left unsaid could cause hard feelings to fester into something worse. 

Plus, if they weren’t talking, then the sounds of the forest took center stage. Things watched them, out there in the dark. Aerith shivered. 

If Barret heard her, he didn’t respond. He craned his neck and waved his lantern back and forth, trying to spot anything bright or reflective. 

“So…uh, " She thought back to Barret's explanation of the monster attack that afternoon. "Swoop season. Kind of a funny name for something so dangerous.” 

“Mm-hmm.”

More walking. The dark sky and muggy air pressed against them like a weight. Birds cawed in the distance. They were hungry. Hunting.

“Big birds attacking passerby. Nothing like that back in Midgar.” 

“Nope.” 

Aerith tried pushing through the silent hike again.

“If we weren’t potential prey, it would actually be kind of sweet, don’t you think? Big scary birds feeding their babies?”

“Sure.” 

Aerith had never let a one-sided conversation stop her before.

She hopped alongside Barret, trying to catch his eye. “Reminds me of another big scary something with a baby he likes to protect.” 

“Hmph.” He didn’t return her gaze as he scanned the path for the missing dog tags. 

“How’d you know about ‘swoop season’ anyway? Is it just something locals know about?”

“I ain’t a local.” 

Hey, four words in a row. Aerith cocked her head, seizing her opening. “I thought you said you were from Corel?”

“ North Corel.” Barret pointed a thumb behind him, in the direction of the mountains. “Coal country. No trees to swoop from in the badlands.” 

“So you know about the feeding habits of giant carnivorous birds because…?”

Barret stopped his march, leaning his head back. He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You sure ask a lot of questions.” 

“You keep answering ‘em,” Aerith chirped. 

She caught up to Barret and placed a gentle hand on his arm. “I’m sorry if it’s getting on your nerves. Ever since we left Costa it seems like you’ve been hurting.” She turned to the direction of the mountains. “I’m guessing there’s some pain back there you aren’t keen to get back to.” 

He sighed. His shoulders slumped. “Not just some pain,” he whispered. “All the pain.” 

“You… wanna talk about it?”

“Not really.” 

“You wanna talk about why those dog tags are so important?”

“Not especially.” 

“You… want me to shut up and get back to searching?”

Barret huffed and started walking again. His movement was a little less agitated, at least. Aerith picked up her pace to stay with him, her eyes alert.

A few paces later, Barret got down to his hands and knees to investigate a divot in the ground. Seeing nothing, he rose with a groan and started down the trail again.

“Marlene’s picture books,” he mumbled after a while. 

“Come again?”

“I know about swoop season from Marlene’s picture books.” Barret swept at some leaves on the ground to see what was under them.

“She has a whole series on animals and their babies. She likes the big orange Zu-birds in Corel. Likes how they hunt monsters to get food for their chicks.” 

Aerith smiled, thinking of the little girl back at Elmyra’s house. “I can see why she likes them. It's kind of cool, isn’t it? A full- sized Zu can kill dangerous monsters and feed their babies at the same time. It’s like two good deeds in one.” 

Barret chuckled. Some of the tension left his shoulders, and his jaw unclenched by a hair.

“That’s exactly what Marlene says.” 

“Smart kid.” Aerith should have started by bringing up Marlene. Talking about his daughter always put Barret’s at ease. 

“Smarter’n her dads, at least.” Barret froze. “Uh, her dad.” 

“Her… dads?” Barret had never much talked about his family. Did he have a husband? Did they adopt Marlene? That would explain… a lot about Marlene’s looks compared to his. 

Barret set his jaw and marched onward. “Slip of the tongue. It’s late. Come on, we gotta focus.” 

Aerith cursed to herself. Back to square one . She didn’t press him, and raised her lantern to resume her search in earnest. 

“You know,” she began after a few minutes of silence, “you can talk to us about anything. Or if that’s too hard, you can at least talk to me. I promise I’m a good listener.” 

“Nothing to talk about. Especially when we got a job to do.” 

“Still, the offer stands if-” 

“There!” Barret pointed his prosthetic at a glinting… something well off the path. How had he spotted that? “Something shiny! Could be the tags!” He dashed off the path, barreling through the foliage with ease. 

Aerith grimaced and followed him. Mud seeped around her boots as soon as she stepped off the path. The glimmer ahead of them must have been two or three hundred yards away. To have seen that in the dark? Through the branches? Sharpshooter senses , she marveled.

Aerith approached the glinting object. As she got closer, she saw that the glinting object was a whole collection of glinting objects. Dozens of shining odds and ends littered a cluster of knotty tree branches like decoration. 

She caught up to Barret, who had started climbing the tree. He reached the shining branches and started flinging debris out of it. Buckles, jewelry, scraps of metal, even aluminum food wrappers flew from the canopy. They landed on the ground and Aerith picked up some of the obvious litter to discard. 

She heard Barret mutter to himself as she picked up an empty packet of Stamp Chips. A beagle on the front smiled at her, and she stowed the trash in her pocket. “Barret, what exactly is all this?”

“A nest!” he called back. “Some of the Zu species around here decorate their nests. Kinda like magpies do back in Midgar.” 

A chill ran down her spine. The collection of branches she saw weren’t natural. Something had stacked them. The entire tree canopy was… one nest? Whatever animal built it had to be massive.

 “Zu… like the giant, man-eating birds that kill monsters?” 

“Yeah, exactly! They’re nocturnal. Must be out hunting. Four or five eggs in here too. About the size of Spikey’s bigass head.” 

The air suddenly felt cold. She noticed that the sounds of animals chittering in the trees had stopped too. Had they vanished?

Were they hiding?

“Isn’t disturbing the nest of an apex predator… you know… a horrible idea?” 

Barret continued to root through the nest, muttering to himself instead of responding.

Aerith backed to the trunk of the tree and clenched her staff in both hands. “Barret…?”

“FOUND ‘EM!” 

Barret dropped to the forest floor with a thud. He held his dog tags triumphantly in one hand. 

“Sorry, you say something?”

A deafening screech stopped them both in their tracks. 

Barret jammed the dog tags into a vest pocket and primed the gun in his arm. The barrels spun up and he pointed it at the treeline, looking for signs of movement. 

With her back to the tree, Aerith dropped an arcane ward and prepared a pair of barrier spells. They surrounded her and Barret. Feeling fortified, she conjured a globe of light and sent it sailing into the trees. Tree branches cast jagged shadows around them, but at least they could see. 

A second screech tore through the night, and an orange blur shot out of the woods. It dove straight toward them, but crashed into Aerith’s barrier. Before either of them could react, it wheeled backward and flapped back into the air. Its wings sounded like thunderclaps.

Aerith couldn’t keep it in her line of sight for long- it moved too fast. Too erratic. As best she could tell, the beast was bigger than Barret. And it was sturdy enough to shrug off a collision with her magic shield. A Zu.

Barret yelled and started shooting. Red-hot bullets tore through the night sky, tracing the Zu but failing to hit. He stopped to reload. The Zu twisted as soon as the gunfire stopped and lunged for the tree they hid under. It struck Aerith’s barrier talons-first, shattering it. Clever , she thought. 

Before she could counter with a spell, the Zu launched back into the air. Barret finished reloading and lit up the sky.

“YOU WANT THIS?” he planted his feet and kept the hail of bullets going.

Aerith watched the massive raptor prepare for a third dive. Its head darted from Barret, to Aerith, to the nest above them, then back to Barret. 

The realization struck Aerith like a lightning bolt.

“Barret, wait!” she cried. She tried to grab his arm and pull him away from the tree, but he was too solid. Thinking fast, she sprinted away from the tree, back toward the path. 

“Hey! Look!” She didn’t know if she was talking to Barret or the Zu, but she needed to make her point. She conjured shards of ice and fired them at the fiend. It flapped to avoid them, but paid no other attention to Aerith. Instead, it turned its head between Barret and the nest above him. It started gaining altitude for another dive. 

“Barret, it only wants to keep its nest safe! Just run!” 

The roaring gunfire kept Barret from hearing her. He trained his gun on the Zu, each round tracking closer to the orange beast. 

It dove at Barret, and he lined up his shot. 

Aerith gritted her teeth and pointed her staff at him. I’m sorry , she thought. She prepared the smallest wind spell she could and sent it gusting toward Barret. It caught him just as he began to fire, flipping him head over heels away from the tree. 

The Zu couldn’t alter its trajectory in time and hit the ground hard, landing in a crumpled heap. It seemed dazed but none the worse for wear. 

In a split second Barret was back on his feet and rage blazed in his eyes. “You trying to get us KILLED?” He spun to face the Zu. He pointed his gun at it and the materia within began to shine. 

Aerith watched in horror as the helpless bird stared at its own demise. It was too dazed from hitting the ground to start flying again. “Barret!” she pleaded. “It just wants to protect its babies!”

The materia in Barret’s arm nearly blinded her as he screamed. The spell blossomed from the barrel of his gun, erupting into a shower of gold and blue sparks. It slammed into the Zu at point blank rage. 

It fell to the forest floor. 

Barret’s gun dimmed as he flipped the safety on. 

And the Zu began to snore. 

“Sleep materia,” Barret grunted. “Gotta thank Miss Ninja for it later.” 

Aerith sank to her knees in relief. The ground felt soft, and it was nice to sit.

Barret stared at the sleeping bird, then glanced back at the nest. Neither he nor the Zu had gotten anywhere close to it during the fight. The eggs were safe. 

Aerith stared at him as he slowed his breathing down. Anger still radiated off of him. Fear did too. He glanced at the mountains in the distance, shaking his head. 

Barret groaned and joined her sitting on the ground. “Can’t fault a parent for trying to keep its kids safe.” He tilted his head to Aerith. “Sorry I scared you. I… lost myself a little today.” 

Aerith released her breath and nodded. “You… feel like talking about it now?”

He sighed.

“I guess I owe you that much.” He crossed his legs and turned his head up to watch the stars. “I grew up in North Corel. Made a lot of mistakes I’m not proud of. Never thought I’d have to come back. Have to confront the shit I ran away from.” 

Silence settled between them, save for the Zu’s snoring. 

A few minutes passed before Barret continued. “I guess I owe you the whole story. I owe you all the full story.” He took the dog tags out of his vest pocket and rubbed his thumb over them. “It’s the kind of story you only tell once, so bear with me until we can get back to the group.”

“I thought you said you felt like talking about it,” Aerith chided. 

“Hmph. Maybe I just feel like talking… around it.” 

“Around it’s fine for now,” Aerith promised. She pointed at the dog tags. “Does ‘talking around it’ include explaining why those are so important?”

Barret let them settle in his palm, then brought them to his lips and kissed them. “I guess it does.” 

He held them in front of her and they glinted in the moonlight. “Notice anything funny about ‘em?”

Aerith peered at them as they dangled from their chain. “Can’t say I know too much about normal dog tags, much less funny ones.” 

Barret chuckled. “They’re modified. Way thicker than normal IDs.” He ran his thumb along the edge of the first tag, and it clicked open. He did the same thing for the second one, then offered them to Aerith. 

She took them reverently and examined them. “They’re lockets!” she exclaimed. 

“Two most important women in the world.” 

Aerith looked at the first picture. A pale-skinned baby with dark hair and bright eyes smiled back at her. Marlene. 

The second locket showed a handsome woman with dark skin and long braids. She looked straight into the camera with a soft smile. 

“That’s… my wife. Myrna.” Barret's voice cracked. “Most perfect woman that ever lived. She wrote poems. Painted. Made the world beautiful.” 

Tears trickled down his cheeks into his beard. “A few years ago, there was…” he cleared his throat. “There was an accident. My fault.”  

He squeezed his eyes shut. “She didn’t make it. Lots of people didn’t make it.” 

Aerith reached her arm around the Barret’s broad shoulders and hugged him. His head fell into his chest. “My fault,” he repeated hoarsely. 

“And in the days after the accident, parts of me just… shut down. I couldn’t work. Couldn’t eat. But I had to take care of Marlene. No one else was around to. Her, uh, birth parents didn’t make it either.” 

He knuckled his forehead and shook. “My fault.” 

He traced his fingers along the riveting of his prosthetic. “I was like a machine. Couldn’t feel anything. Couldn’t think. Could only do . Only, I was a machine that was out of fuel.” He shook his head. “Stuck.” 

“I told myself I had to make something happen. If not for me, then for Marlene. And that was fuel.” He rubbed his hand through his hair. “You ever done anything for love? It’s a good motivator. Good fuel.”

Aerith hummed. “It got me to write eighty nine letters to the same guy once.” Barret raised an eyebrow. “Not at the same time,” Aerith clarified in a rush. “Over five years.”

“Five years worth of fuel, huh? Not bad. But love’s got some downsides too.”

He tapped his head.

“It leaves you vulnerable. Makes you afraid. If something happened-” his voice caught. “If Marlene was ever… not okay? That would be it. That would be the end of me.” 

“And I knew I’d never be any good for her as long as I carried that fear around with me. Machine needs a different kind of fuel. Love isn’t enough.” 

Aerith frowned. “Love isn’t enough?”

“Not enough for me.” Barret slumped, like his admission was something to be ashamed of. “I needed something that could get me moving when the fear paralyzed me. I started to learn about Planetology. About Shinra. And the reactors .” He spat the last word out. 

“They have to be destroyed. For the good of everybody. Not stopped. Not averted. Destroyed.” He clenched his fist. “I found my second fuel.”

“Shinra?”

He shrugged his way out of Aerith’s side hug. “Hate.” He stood up, his back to her. “Hatred is the best fuel on the whole damn Planet. Doesn’t matter how much you wanna off yourself. Doesn’t matter how scared you get for your kid.” 

He glanced at the sleeping Zu. “As long as you’ve got something to hate, you can do anything. You can channel that anger. Make the impossible happen.”

He polished the scope on his arm. “You just need something to target. Something big. Something you can throw yourself against. There’s a whole lot of Shinra to target. A whole lot of reasons to get out of bed in the morning.” 

Aerith pursed her lips. “So you’re just gonna carry that around forever?”

He turned back to her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what happens when we beat Shinra? You shut down again? Or do you find a new target? Something new to hate?” She frowned. “Have you thought about what happens after all this is over?”

He paused. “To tell you the truth, no. I’ve just been focusing on the next day.” He stroked his chin. “What about you? What are you gonna do with your life when this is all over?”

Aerith thought of her church. Her flowers. She thought of glowing eyes, and held hands, and swimming lessons. 

Then she remembered the specter on the beach. 

Suddenly, Barret's words clicked. Being afraid made you vulnerable. Barret couldn't see a future without Marlene, so he focused on the next day.

Aerith couldn't see a future at all. Maybe she should just focus on the next day too.

“There is no life for me when this is all over,” she said bitterly. 

Concern flashed across Barret’s face. “Hey now. Don’t go sounding like… you’re not gonna make it back.”

“You mean sounding like you?” For a split second, it was hard not to resent him for having years ahead of him. She squashed the feeling within a heartbeat. Barret deserved peace. They all did.

He paused. 

“Yeah. Don’t go sounding like me.” He blew air out of his mouth in surprise. “I was prepared to not come back from this,” he realized. “I was prepared to leave Marlene behind.” 

Aerith put the lockets back in Barret’s hand. “I don’t think you can stop yourself from hating. But you can stop yourself from only hating.” 

“Hate gives you power,” he countered. “If you’re too scared to get out of bed in the morning, or too depressed, find the anger inside. It’ll get you up and moving.” 

Is that what I need? she thought. If I find something to hate enough, could I survive?

“But what does that cost you?” Aerith shifted her weight to look at Barret. “If you let hate replace the fear and the sadness, you could let it replace other things too. The joy. The love.” 

He nodded slowly. “That’s… a good point.” He looked down at the lockets before closing them and hanging them around his neck. “But we need that power. At least some of the time.”

“Do we?”

“I do,” he said quietly. “Maybe I’m too broken to think another way. If love and joy keep you on your feet then more power to you. But I can’t… always rely on that. I need the hate.”

“Well, we need you .” Aerith replied. “And if the hate burns up all the good things about you, what’s left? Not Barret.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. Instead, he looked up at the stars again. Aerith sat next to him, content to let him work through their conversation in silence.

“I don’t want to go back to that town,” he finally said. “But if we have to, we have to. I’ll find a way to get through it. Maybe it’s by being brave. Maybe it’s by being angry. But I’ll go. I’ll find the fuel to get there.”

He pressed his hand over his heart. “Thank you. For the talk. For helping me get my reasons in order.”

Aerith smiled. “Thank you for being willing to talk it through.” He started off down the path back to camp, and Aerith followed.

The covered the miles back to camp in silence. It was an easy silence this time. A reflective one.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Barret offered as they walked. “We’ll help each other get through this. And we’ll get each other to the people we love. I’ll stay with mine, and you stay with yours- for a long time after all this.”

Aerith stumbled. “What are you talking about?” 

“Well, I’ve got Marlene.”

“And I have…”

 “And you’ve got a blonde-haired, blue eyed watchdog that I do not want to piss off.”

She flushed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Oh really? I’ll have to tell Miss Elmyra that you’ve already forgotten about her the next time I call Marlene.” 

"Right... Elmyra."

"No one else fits that description right? Nothing else on your mind?"

Aerith blushed and hoped he couldn't see her in the dark.

Barret guffawed all the way back to camp.

Chapter Text

Reactors, Reactions

Within the Lifestream

Aerith watched her life’s path trace a line from the Corel lowlands into the mountains above. It was an uneventful few days, except for the episode with Barret’s lockets. His words echoed in her ears as she watched her past self travel.

Love isn’t enough, he’d warned.  

Hatred is the best fuel on the whole damn Planet.

She thought of Hojo and his endless needles. 

She thought of Rufus and his never ending quest for power.

She thought of Sephiroth, who took her away from her friends. 

“As long as you’ve got something to hate, you can do anything,” she repeated. 

Ifalna appeared with a wan smile. 

“As long as you’ve got something to hate, you can justify anything reprehensible.” 

Her once vibrant hair hung limp around her, and the shine in her eyes had dulled. Aerith could see through her mother’s skin in patches. Her manifestations grew weaker with each appearance. 

“Hate isn’t the way of the Cetra, Petal.” Concern crossed Ifalna’s weary face. “Who taught you a lesson like that?” 

Aerith didn’t hesitate. “One of the finest men I’ve ever known.” 

She told Ifalna about Barret. There were things she still couldn’t remember about him. But she did know that he’d told the party everything in his own time. Aerith expected to relearn his past soon.

“He had so much love in his heart. You could see it, even if he tried to hide it. But he had anger too. It was like an ember that he never could put out. Sometimes he’d let that ember blaze into hate.” She thought back to the impossible fights they faced in Corel and beyond. “Hate made him strong enough to fight.” 

Ifalna shook her head. “Hate is the path to ruin. Our ancient foes hated us. The Gi. Jenova. And in their hate, they festered. They couldn’t become part of a greater whole. Hate isolated them.” 

“But it gave them strength too,” Aerith countered. “The Gi are still here. Jenova is still here. And… that’s what I want. I want to persist. What if hate gives me a path back to them?”

She wrapped Aerith in a hug with translucent arms. Aerith barely felt the weight.  “What if hate makes you forget why you fight in the first place? Love. Love is the tool of the Cetra.” 

Aerith hugged her mother back, trying not to notice how she passed through Ifalna’s back for a moment. “I tried fighting Sephiroth with love.” For a moment, the searing pain through her chest came back. “Love couldn’t stop him.” 

“Love couldn’t stop him yet ,” Ifalna corrected. “Remember the words of the Planet. The future is still in play.” She gazed at the thread of Aerith’s life pulsing through the Planet. “And somewhere in your memories is the key to stopping him.” 

They drifted through the spaceless space and timeless time of the Lifestream together. 

After the trek through the lowlands outside of Costa, they began the ascent to North Corel. 

Aerith recalled the hike up. It was a hard climb. Barret, Tifa, and Yuffie forged ahead, while Cloud and Nanaki stayed back with her. 

“It feels… different here,” Aerith noticed. She watched herself climb the slopes. As her past self ascended, Aerith could feel the dry heat of the highlands on her skin. She could feel the loose stone under her feet. 

She could smell raw Mako in the air. 

“Different indeed,” Ifalna agreed. She reached her hands out and watched them flicker. “The barrier between their world and ours is thin here. Distressed. The real world reaches our senses here.” 

Aerith watched herself crest a hill with the others and take in the ruins of a Shinra reactor. Mako pooled like a vast lake under their feet. Here, the line between life and death was thinner than she had ever felt. A wound in the planet, its lifeblood clotting on the wrong side of the afterlife. 

She felt a presence swimming in the depths below. 

CAUTION, YOUNG DAUGHTER . 

Vast, ageless thoughts reached out to her and Ifalna. It reminded her of the rumbling vastness of the Planet itself. 

YOU STRAY TOO CLOSE TO THEIR WORLD . 

A Weapon. 

“I was here once,” Aerith called back to the creature. “I want to know what I did here. My memories are…out of sorts.” 

WATCHING IS PERMITTED. 

INTERFERING IS NOT.

“Thank you, kind…” How would you address something like that? “Er…” 

“Thank you, Great Steward.” Ifalna smoothly interrupted Aerith. “We mean only to watch.”

WATCH, THEN. 

BUT DO NOT MAKE CONTACT. 

DO NOT ALTER EVENTS THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN.  

A flurry of motion rose from the depths of the Mako pool. Pale robes swarmed and blocked Aerith’s ability to see the other side. 

WE HAVE WAYS OF ENFORCING THE WILL OF GAIA . 

More Whispers? Aerith thought. White ones? A different kind? Beside her, Ifalna spasmed and began to fade. As the onslaught of white whispers faded, her mother’s breathing stilled.

“Are you going to be okay?” Aerith touched her mother’s elbow and willed strength into her. 

“The Oneness… calls to me, Petal. It gets harder to remember myself, amid the chorus of the Lifestream.” Ifalna shimmered and faded. “I want to see this life you’ve lived. But I’m not sure if Fate wills me to linger that long.” 

Aerith squeezed her arm. “Please don’t leave me,” she whispered. “I can’t do this alone.” 

“You’re never alone, Petal. I’ll still be with you.” Ifalna’s eyes closed. “But I think… for now I need to rest.” She leaned back and began to fade. Aerith saw the edges of her body fuzz and blend with the strands of the Lifestream. As Ifalna became more translucent, Aerith saw how the Lifestream embraced her with a million small fingers. The chorus of voices- the other Ancients- embraced her. Ifalna smiled and disappeared.

 Her voice lingered a few moments longer. “Still, it was nice to feel the sun today. And the love. A strong sense of love here…” 

Aerith opened her senses, scanning for Ifalna’s presence in alarm. She was still there. Separate from the chorus. She could come back. She just needed rest. 

“Love, Petal. Recall love over hate.” 

Ifalna’s last words mixed with Aerith’s own memories. An impression of love persisted on the craggy mountain. What had it been? 

Aerith reached for her past self as she finished the hike to the peak. The group had crossed a bridge and made it into North Corel…

Corel Shantytown

… Aerith blinked her eyes and stumbled on a loose rock. The entire group had gathered on a platform on the outskirts of the coal mining town called North Corel. Her hearing fuzzed and she clutched her head. 

“Hey, you okay?” Tifa’s voice cut through Aerith’s fugue. She looked up and saw the boxer smiling with a canteen in her hands. She held it out. 

Aerith took the water, appreciating the gesture, and drank. “Thanks. I guess the hike took more out of me than I thought.” 

She looked around. Behind her was a motley collection of huts and tents. Ahead of her, a ramshackle gondola platform teetered on the edge of a cliff. Its ropeway rose into clouds and disappeared. A computer terminal blinked next to the pulley system. 

I walked all the way through town without realizing it? She thought. The hike had been a trial. 

“This thing SUCKS.” Yuffie banged on the terminal while Cloud, who stood next to her, winced. 

“Hitting it won’t change the readout,” he pointed out. He sounded tired too.  

“Well what the hell does it mean?” Yuffie slammed her hands on the terminal. “Capacitor depletion error?”

“Means the gondola’s outta juice,” Barret muttered. He stood off to the side, where he had taken his bedroll out. “The winch has to charge. Takes about two days.” 

“Two DAYS?” Yuffie paced across the platform. She eyed the ropeway like she considered climbing it by hand. “We have to spend two DAYS in this hellhole?” 

Tifa winced. “Hey, maybe keep it a little quieter? The town's right over there.” 

Nanaki had already started padding down the path back into town. “At least there’s an inn here.”

Cloud finished entering a set of keystrokes. The error message disappeared and a charging status screen popped up. 

CAPACITOR DEPLETED. 

ESTIMATED TIME TO CHARGE: 44 HOURS.

“So we’ve got some time to kill.” Cloud followed Nanaki into the town. “Maybe we can pick up some work.” 

“Y’all enjoy the inn. I’m not going back there if I can help it.” Barret climbed into his bedroll and pulled out his folio. He began scratching notes into it with his good hand. 

Tifa frowned. “You sure? Seems awfully lonely up here.” 

Barret turned over and huffed. He flipped through pages with a scowl on his face. 

Aerith took Tifa’s arm and set off in the direction of the inn. “He’ll explain when he’s ready,” she whispered. “But he’s got some stuff to work through.”

Tifa watched Barret for another moment, then nodded. “Yuffie, you coming?”

“Obviously.” She darted past the two of them and made for the inn. 

Aerith handed Tifa’s canteen back and slipped her pack on. Tifa did the same, and they strolled to the inn for the evening. 

***

The next morning, Aerith woke up and rolled out of her narrow bed. She hit the ground with a thud and a groan. 

“Inn” might have oversold last night’s lodgings. Someone had crammed nine bunks into one of the sturdier buildings, flophouse style. Then they'd added a shoddy common room to one end of the structure. 

Rickety two-by-four flooring creaked under each step. Above her, the roof was a heap of tin panels nailed together. Smells from the common room- liquor, coffee, sweat, and gruel- wafted into the sleeping area. 

Yuffie bolted upright at the sound of Aerith falling out of bed. She scowled at Aerith through bleary eyes, then turned over and went back to sleep. 

Not a morning person , Aerith observed. She looked around and saw that the others had already gotten up for the day. After a brief wash in the shower out back, she wandered into the common room and couldn’t help but grin. The inn felt like the Midgar slums: grungy, well-used, and falling apart. 

It felt like home. 

A dozen people sat in the common room in small clusters. Most of them drank coffee with haunted expressions. A few had opted for breakfast- a beige paste of some kind- and they'd all started drinking already. The low hum of conversation filled the air. 

Aerith spotted Cloud on a worn piano stool at the edge of the room. The locals had commandeered all the real tables and chairs, so he must have taken the only free seat. She waved at him from across the room, trying to get his attention. 

At the same time, Tifa appeared from behind a pillar. She balanced two steaming mugs of coffee and two bowls of slop in her arms. She sat on the bench next to Cloud and handed him breakfast. 

Aerith watched as Tifa told him something imperceptible through the low din of the room. Cloud frowned and tilted his ear toward her. Tifa cupped her hands around her mouth and over-enunciated each word. Cloud nodded and gave her a small smile as Tifa giggled and slugged his shoulder playfully. 

She stood up and squeezed his arm, then stepped outside with her meal. 

Aerith watched the scene unfold as a knot formed in her stomach. She shouldn’t have postponed her business talk with Tifa so long. 

She approached the bar, her mouth dry, and caught the owner’s attention. She was a sturdy woman, with thick arms and gray-streaked hair. 

She slid a bowl of slop and a chipped cup of coffee toward her without saying a word. Aerith took out her money pouch but the owner waved her off. “You’re settled up. Mister short, pale, and handsome back there already paid for ya.”

“It looks… delicious.” Aerith took the dishes and left a few gil on the bar as a tip anyway. She caught Cloud’s attention and his eyes lit up, though he tried to keep the rest of his body language reserved. 

He scooted over on the piano bench as Aerith approached. She sat next to him and smiled. 

“Did you know that food is free here? I tried to pay and the innkeeper wouldn’t take my money. This place is fancier than I thought.” 

Cloud furrowed his eyebrows, glancing at the bar before understanding the joke. “Yeah. Complementary mush with a full night’s stay. Limited time only.” 

Aerith winked as she took her seat next to the merc. “Couldn’t possibly be that someone was trying to buy me breakfast.” 

He scowled. “Well, they messed it up anyway. I asked them if they could bring it to you in bed as a surpr-” he stopped himself and coughed into his mug. Smooth . “No. Couldn’t possibly be that someone bought you breakfast.” 

Aerith giggled and brought the bowl to her face to hide a blush. “I saw Tifa stepping out as I got up. She mention what she was up to today?”

“Yeah, actually. The doctor that helped her, uh, after… Nibelheim. He opened a clinic here. She wanted to catch up with him.” Cloud finished his breakfast and put the bowl down. He rested his coffee cup, untouched, on the top of the piano. 

“Small world, huh?” Aerith took a bite of breakfast. She realized that at one point the mush had tried to be grits, but must have given up a few eons ago. 

“Very small,” Cloud agreed. 

She spooned up a few more mouthfuls of “food” as she watched the breakfast crowd clear out. Before long, only Aerith, Cloud, and a few day drinkers remained. 

“Um. You have any plans today?” Cloud leaned back, trying to look nonchalant. His elbows mashed the piano keys and an atonal chord rang out. No one else in the room seemed to notice. 

“Thought I might head back to that reactor, actually.” Aerith thought back to their trek yesterday. She swore she could sense something in the depths of the Mako pool. Something beyond the enormous Weapon they all saw. 

“It reminded me of the Lifesprings. All that energy. Maybe I could get some guidance from the Planet.” 

“You want to do another hike? After yesterday?” Cloud sounded incredulous. 

“It’s not that bad. I could take the mine carts a lot of the way. Then a mile or two, do a little bit of poking around, and then head back.” 

“Sounds dangerous.”

Aerith beamed. “Sounds like bodyguard work.” 

“What, just the two of us?”

Aerith nodded. “Standard fee?”

Cloud blushed and rubbed his hand through his hair. “You know, you’re putting a lot on the ledger without paying up. You uh, still owe me for the swimming lesson. And the first day in Sector Five.” 

“What, the date in Costa Del Sol didn’t count?” Aerith thought back to their errands on behalf of the town's fashion designers. That had been a good day. 

“Not a date. We were both on the clock.” Cloud frowned. “Besides, that was too complicated to be a date. It was a big to-do list.” 

“Riiiight. What did you say a good date was? Going on a walk?”

He crossed his arms and scowled. “Walks are nice.” 

“Well, going to the reactor is a walk… kind of.” Then, almost as if the thought had been waiting for the right moment to appear, an idea popped into her head.. “What if we called this one a two-for-one? A job and a date?” She glanced at the general store across the street. “I’ll pack a basket for lunch. It’ll be fun!”

Cloud chuckled. “You’ve got a deal.” It was good to see he could thaw out a little.

Aerith finished her slop and drank the rest of her gritty, stale coffee. Like being back home . The gourmet food on the ship and in Costa had been pleasant, but uncomfortable. Aerith appreciated the familiarity of a meal that didn’t care if it choked you to death. 

Outside, she found a handful of stalls selling groceries. Brown, wilting produce lined a few booths next to canned goods and dried meat. Aerith managed to scavenge the basics of a picnic- including drinks and a tin of cookies for dessert. It took less time than she expected. 

She overpaid for almost everything. The shopkeepers made it clear they wanted to haggle, listing ridiculous prices. Their empty eyes and gaunt cheeks stopped Aerith from pushing back, though. Her money reserves were good, and a little bit of extra gil would do the townsfolk better than her. 

Aerith walked back to the inn. As she approached, she heard music drifting from inside the common room. Piano notes. 

Curious, she ducked her head inside. The few locals that stayed behind hadn’t moved from their cups. The innkeeper polished a glass with a rag that made the poor thing even dirtier. That left only one person as the mystery musician. 

Sure enough, as Aerith’s vision adjusted to the grimy darkness, she saw Cloud on the keys. Two packed rucksacks sat behind him. He must have finished prepping for the hike early. 

He played slowly, brow wrinkled in concentration. 

The piano had a brighter, cleaner tone than she’d have expected from the tattered instrument. 

He played a quiet song. It was simple, and he picked out halting notes with his right hand. Cloud closed his eyes as he grew more comfortable with the feel of the keys. The notes began to flow like water as he picked up speed. 

The locals stopped talking so loudly. A few craned their heads to watch Cloud play as his plinking tune turned into a full melody.

The melody invoked a sense of innocence, and long forgotten nostalgia. Cloud didn’t sing- the song had no lyrics- and yet, Aerith could see a story unfolding.

She pictured a solitary figure in her mind’s eye. The lonely woman wandered through the world, carrying loss in her heart. No mother, no father, no home. But the loss didn’t define her. 

Cloud began a more complex section, and his notes rang out with more confidence.

The song spoke of a longing for companionship. She heard notes of starry skies and whispered promises under the moonlight. Of childhood optimism, renewed after years of loneliness. 

Cloud’s left hand began a countermelody, and with it he showed the figure’s inner strength.

His song told the story of a woman bent, but not broken. The story within the music hinted of bruised knuckles and open hands, of strength used to protect. The figure knew violence, but always, always preferred to reach out with love first.  

Aerith watched Cloud move in time with the music. His shoulders swayed like a dancer’s. She couldn’t help but contrast how he moved here to how he fought. In combat, he moved with rapid, abrupt bursts of speed- staccato and brutal. Here, he drifted, floating over each note. 

The conversations in the bar had fully stopped. Everyone- even the bartender- listened with reverence to the music. Cloud didn’t seem to notice.

The song reached a crescendo as both of Cloud’s hands danced across the keys. In that moment, Aerith felt the dingy bar around her transform to another bar altogether. The song told of a place for friends to meet. A refuge against a hard day under a steel sky. A bar, lost now, crushed like the childhood dreams before it, and yet the woman in the song still stood tall.

Cloud finished with a series of meandering chords. They spoke of healed scars, sunrises, and promises kept. 

The final notes drifted through the common room and faded. The spell broke, and the other patrons began their murmuring conversations again. No one commented on the music, but there wasn’t as much of a hardness in the locals’ voices anymore.

Aerith watched Cloud open his eyes and replace the cover on the piano. He turned to the packs at his feet and began fretting with the straps. Still hypnotized by the song, she approached him. 

“That was beautiful.” Aerith knelt and began loading the packs with her shopping. She glanced up at Cloud with a smile. 

“It was, uh, a little rough,” Cloud admitted. “Still trying to get my chops back up.” 

Aerith had heard Cloud dabble at a piano back at the fort in Junon, but it had been nothing like the song he'd finished now. For a few minutes, his music revealed the profound way his soul saw the world. 

“Did you write it?” 

He nodded. “I started warming up and the notes kind of… appeared.” He tapped his head. “It’s all up here though. Haven’t written it down yet.” 

Aerith finished packing their bags and stood up. She shouldered one of them and handed the other to Cloud. “She means a lot to you, doesn’t she?” 

Cloud grabbed his pack and rested his hand on the piano. Aerith didn’t need to clarify who the song was about.

“She reminds me of who I was." He kept his voice soft. “Sometimes, I…” he looked down at his hands, fingering the bandage he always had wrapped around his left arm. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember him.” 

“He seemed like someone worth getting to know,” Aerith hummed. “Of course, so’s the guy in front of me now.” 

Cloud looked down at his feet bashfully. “He’s not that great.” He made for the door. “But you can count on him when he has a job to do.” 

Aerith followed him into the sunlight and squeezed his hand as she passed him. “Don’t forget, the job is only half of our outing today. You’re on the clock and off the clock, Mister Merc.” 

Cloud saluted as a small grin tugged his mouth. “You got it, boss.” 

***

Aerith hopped out of the powered minecart that had carried them from town back to the mountainside. Cloud followed her, engaging the safety brake and grabbing his sword.

He looked back at the vista behind them. He stepped onto the tracks and took out a small SLR camera. After a few moments of lining up a shot, he sighed and snapped a picture of the landscape. 

“My, you’re in rare form today. First the piano, now the photography.” Aerith watched him fiddle with the camera. He turned to her with a sheepish face. 

“I’m trying to find more vistas for a photography association,” he explained. “I met them in Kalm and I’ve tried to stay in touch with them. I don’t think this is a very good photo, but it’s nice to practice without the others seeing.” 

Aerith frowned. “You know, you can be more to them than just an ex-SOLDIER.” She took the camera from him and wiped a smudge off the lens with her dress. 

Cloud’s face fell. “SOLDIERs get respect,” he muttered. “Photographers don’t.” 

“ You get respect,” Aerith insisted. “The Queen’s Blood champion. The pianist. The photographer. The chocobo wrangler.” She tilted her head to catch his eye. “People like people that have a lot going on in their life. Makes them fun.”

Cloud crossed his arms. “Nobody liked me until I was in SOLDIER.” 

“Hey.” Aerith grabbed Cloud’s hand with a soft touch before he could finish crossing his arms. Before he could finish putting his wall up. “Cut that out.” She pulled him onto the trail to the abandoned reactor. “You gotta stay with me today. You . Not the SOLDIER.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Aerith sighed. Ever since the night of Jenova’s attack, she had tried to make sense of Cloud’s sometimes erratic behavior. She remembered his episode after the fight had ended. 

Am I… him?

Or am I him ?

Or am I me?

His glassy eyes glowed with too much Mako that night. Since then, Aerith noticed that Cloud could sometimes… disappear behind different masks. It was like he felt the need to show people what they expected to see

There was the callous, business-first mercenary with the skills to back up his bravado. Aerith noticed that Cloud would sometimes puff his chest out and rest his hands on his hips. He made himself look bigger- his feet set wider apart. It was like Cloud tried to act like the SOLDIERs in TV commercials. Or like… another SOLDIER she’d once known.

Then there was the calm, collected warrior . That one could turn off his emotions and unleash unspeakable waves of violence in an instant. This mask came out in fights- especially against Shinra assets. Cloud’s eyes would become unfocused, and he’d sway like something pulled on his limbs. He didn’t really move like a person during these episodes- more like a… puppet. Some other force guided his attacks. 

But sometimes those masks slipped off. In those moments, Aerith saw the real Cloud. The one who helped her pick flowers for a girl’s silly request. Who chased Moogles in the forest. Who tied bad tent knots and played songs about his friends. 

The moments where Cloud’s masks fell away to show the man underneath always delighted Aerith. 

She loved seeing the real Cloud come out.

The mercenary didn't jump between her and a platoon of Shinra guards right after meeting her. 

The emotionless warrior didn’t save the Leaf House kids from the Toad King for free. 

Aerith loved spending time with the real Cloud. 

The real Cloud could dance on the stage of a Wall Market brothel, then get into drag to help his oldest friend out of a bind. 

The real Cloud would storm the most fortified building in the world to rescue a woman that he hardly knew.

The real Cloud went swimming with her.

And fixed broken flower planters with her.

And didn’t think twice before volunteering to hike to a melted-down power plant with her. 

Aerith loved getting to know the real Cloud. 

“You okay?” Cloud tilted his head as he looked at her. How long had she been thinking about their time together?

The gears in her mind turned faster. They hurtled toward the one ineffable conclusion. She'd been too dense to acknowledge it until right now.  

Aerith didn’t love spending time with the real Cloud. 

Aerith didn’t love getting to know the real Cloud.

She felt her heart skip a beat.

Oh, no , she thought. 

The realization swelled in her chest. 

Aerith just… loved the real Cloud.

The epiphany washed over her like a bucket of ice water dumped on her head. 

She loved him. 

“Aerith?” 

Cloud walked over to her and waved a hand in front of her face. “What do you mean, stay with you today? I’m right here.” 

Aerith giggled in a way that she hoped didn’t sound deranged. “Yep! You’re right. You’re right here.” She realized she was still polishing the lens of Cloud’s camera and handed it back to him. "Right here, all right."

“Sorry about that. Altitude sickness. Makes me loopy.” She tapped the side of her head with her index finger. “All good now though. Shall we?” She darted down the path to the ruined reactor. She took short, quick steps, as if breaking into a jog could help her run away from her realization.

I’ve got to talk to her again , Aerith thought, picturing her specter from the beach. I need to know how she’s going to die. She couldn’t realize… what she’d just realized about Cloud only to leave him. 

Cloud rubbed the back of his head and followed her. “Yeah. Sounds good.” 

They marched down the path side by side. Cloud cleared his throat. “Let me know if you start feeling, uh, loopy again. We can stop for water.” He patted his pocket. “I have some Remedies too if that helps.” 

Aerith smiled. Leave it to Cloud to bring combat-grade pharmaceuticals on a hike. 

“So,” Cloud continued. “You’ve gotta tell me some stuff about you too.” 

She arched an eyebrow. “Oh? What does that mean?”

“If I’m more than one thing- a photographer, a piano player- you know, what sorts of things are you?”

“Well, I’m the last living Cetra. That’s a start. ”

“Nope. If I can’t be the ex-SOLDIER right now you can’t be the Cetra.” He gave her a rare smile. “No world-saving stuff today. We're regular people doing regular stuff.” 

“Regular people doing regular people stuff,” she wondered aloud. 

Aerith threaded her arm through Cloud’s elbow. Two people on a walk. Sure, one of them might have realized her crush was a little more serious than she thought. But that was a normal people problem. 

It could be nice to be normal people for an afternoon. 

Cloud seemed surprised at the physical gesture, but he didn’t pull away. “Just until the hike is over?” she asked. “ Two normal people enjoying each other’s company?”

“Normal sounds nice,” he admitted. “We can be normal. Just until the hike is over.” He squeezed her arm tight against his.

“So back to my question. You saw me at the piano. And with the camera. What else do you like to do?” He pointed at a nearby patch of wildflowers. “When you’re not being a florist.” 

“I like music too,” Aerith said. “I can’t play any instruments like you or Tifa, but I like to sing.” She looked at the wildflowers Cloud pointed out. “I sing to the flowers back in Sector Five, mostly. But I’ve always wanted to perform.” 

Cloud nodded. “I could see that.” He didn’t take his arm away from Aerith’s. He was a nice source of heat against the cool mountain air. “You have a favorite song to sing?”

She shook her head. “It’s not fair to the other music to pick favorites.”

“You wouldn’t have a favorite piano song for me to play?”

“Hmm…” She stroked her chin. “Only one way to find out.” 

“Yeah?”

She grinned. “You’ll have to play a lot of songs for me to pick.” 

Cloud snorted. “Not exactly an even trade. I haven’t even heard you sing once.” 

“You’re not a flower.”

“I thought you wanted to perform on a stage?” 

He’s got me there , Aerith thought. “Okay, fine. You play another original song like this morning, and I’ll start working on an original song of my own. It’ll be ready the next time we see a stage.” 

“It’s a deal,” he said with a nod. 

They ambled down the trail arm in arm. Their conversation flowed from one topic to another as morning turned to afternoon. Aerith didn’t realize how much time had passed until they rounded a corner and saw the reactor dead ahead. 

It was a ghastly sight. Jagged spars of rusting metal rose from a fetid pool of Mako. The remnants of the housing structure leaned at precarious angles. No plants grew this close to the chemicals, and the stench of half-processed fuel drove off any animal. 

It was a desolate, damned place. 

“Remind me why you wanted to come here?” Cloud unhooked his arm from Aerith’s and took out his canteen. He offered it to Aerith instead of drinking any himself. 

She took the bottle with a smile. “Call it a sixth sense. I felt something from it yesterday. Something familiar.” 

“The Weapon?”

Aerith shook her head. “I sensed the Weapon too. But there was something else. It almost felt like… my mom.” 

Cloud’s eyes widened. “I thought you said you hadn’t sensed her since you were a kid?”

“Exactly. So there’s something here. Something I want to try to commune with.” 

“Like any regular person would do.” 

She stuck her tongue out at him and approached the edge of the Mako lake. 

Cloud started to follow her, then shook his head. “You… go on ahead.” He sat down. "I’ll hang back. Get started on putting lunch together.” 

Mako sensitivity, she realized. Can’t waste too much time here .

Aerith nodded. “I won’t be long.” 

Most times, spirits from the Lifestream came to Aerith unbidden, and unexpected. She needed to get better at seeking their voices out. In places like this, where the physical and spiritual worlds mixed, she could practice. 

The Lifestream was the Planet experiencing itself, her mother had once said. A chorus of voices across time and space joined as One in the afterlife. 

She had seen herself in that chorus once, during Hojo’s attack. Another Aerith- another perspective- to try and relate to. 

She sat down and focused on her breathing. She pictured Yuffie’s meditation lessons. How different was a mystical clone from a mystical apparition in the afterlife? 

Are you there? Aerith cast her mind out, feeling for the presence she felt yesterday. 

Far below her, something stirred. Massive. Ageless. 

She felt the weight of the air press down on her skin like a weight. The harsh chemical stench of the plant blended with the scent of ozone- the smell of a thunderstorm right before lightning struck.

The Weapon. 

CAUTION, YOUNG DAUGHTER. 

YOU STRAY TOO CLOSE TO A WORLD NOT YET MEANT FOR YOU.

The Weapon’s presence in her mind was so overwhelming that she struggled to remain upright. She felt her heart pounding, and the air around her grew even heavier. The voice thundered within her, though the outside world grew eerily quiet.

But it wasn’t like Jenova’s invasion on the ship. The Weapon meant her no harm. It simply… overwhelmed. 

Aerith exhaled and glanced back at Cloud. He had retreated well away from the Mako pool, grimacing and rubbing his face as he prepared lunch. 

Can’t stay long.  

Drawing her breath back in, Aerith put her hands together as she had seen her mother do. 

“Great, er, Weapon. Sir. How are you?” Once again, her circumstances reminded her that she never learned how to pray. She hoped the Weapon, and whatever other presence she sensed, wouldn’t notice. 

  I HAVE NO NEED FOR SALUTATION OR PLEASANTRIES, YOUNG DAUGHTER.

STATE YOUR PURPOSE PLAIN.

The weight of the creature’s words pressed down on her again. Gritting her teeth, Aerith centered her breathing. She tried to expand her senses, probing into the pool below. 

“I came here for the Lifestream.” Her trembling voice sounded strange in the leaden air. “A few weeks ago, I saw… myself. But not me. At least, not the me I am now.” 

She glanced back at Cloud and lowered her voice. 

“That vision of me looked like other spirits I’ve seen. Dead spirits.” 

SHE IS OF THE WORLD NOT MEANT FOR YOU. 

Aerith’s heart sank. So the ghost-her did exist. 

TAKE HEART, DAUGHTER. ALL MORTALS FIND THEIR WAY HERE IN TIME.

AND HERE, ALL ARE BEYOND TIME. 

“But she looked just like me ,” Aerith replied. “Not an old lady, or a sick person. If she looks like me as a spirit, then it must happen soon, right?” 

Something tugged at her senses. A shift in perspective. The other her? 

SOON HAS NO MEANING HERE.

THE LIFESTREAM FLOWS THROUGH ALL TIME AT ONCE.

“Well it does have meaning here ,” she insisted. “And if I don’t have much time left…” she choked at the thought. “If I don’t have much time left, I need to know that I’ve done everything I can to keep the others safe.” 

A sensation of surprise drifted from the Weapon. 

YOU SEEK TO PROTECT OTHERS, RATHER THAN FORESTALL YOUR DEMISE?

She saw its form emerge from the depths. Its eyes glowed with the same energy as the huge materia in its chest. 

“You can’t fight fate,” she said bitterly. 

YOU CAN. AND YOU HAVE. 

The Weapon breached the Mako pool to look Aerith in the eye. She saw Cloud stir out of the corner of her eye, responding to the quiet splash. She waved her hand out, signaling that he keep his distance. 

To his credit, he sat back down. He trusted her. 

FATE HAS BEEN VANQUISHED.

IT WOULD BE WITHIN YOUR POWER TO SEEK A STAY OF EXECUTION.  

THE REMNANTS OF FATE NO LONGER ENFORCE ONE SINGLE FUTURE.  

From behind the Weapon, dozens of billowing forms spilled into the Mako pool. Whispers- like the spirits that attacked them in Midgar- surged outward.

YOU SPEAK WITH THE FINAL VOICE OF THE CETRA. IT IS WITHIN YOUR REMIT TO COMMAND THEM.

“Command them?” 

THEY MUST BE GIVEN NEW PURPOSE.

ONE SUCH AS YOU MAY SCULPT THE LIFESTREAM AND ITS AGENTS.

Aerith’s head spun at the revelation. Command Whispers? Command the Lifestream?

Her?

“How would I do that?” She asked. “How could I… sculpt the Lifestream and its agents?”

IT IS NOT MY PLACE TO TEACH.

YOU KNOW THIS THING, OR YOU DO NOT.

Aerith felt the second, fainter presence stir again. Curiosity. Eagerness. She cast her mind out, grasping for the sensation. The source of the eagerness reached back. 

CAUTION, YOUNG DAUGHTER. YOU STRAY TOO CLOSE TO THEIR WORLD . 

The Weapon’s thundering thoughts pealed out. Somehow, Aerith got the impression they weren’t directed at her. Young daughter? That’s what he called me.

WATCHING IS PERMITTED.

INTERFERING IS NOT. 

Was the Weapon talking to the other presence? The eagerness?

WATCH, THEN. BUT DO NOT ALTER EVENTS THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN.

The white Whispers quivered and pulsed. They flickered in and out of existence around the Weapon. It seemed like it carried on a conversation Aerith could only half hear.

WE HAVE WAYS OF ENFORCING THE WILL OF GAIA. 

Aerith squinted her eyes to glimpse into the depths of the Mako pool as the Whispers oscillated. Something- no, someone- was there. Familiar. Eager. 

She felt a moment of dread. What if this was a trap? Could Jenova lurk within the Lifestream? Did the Weapon just want Aerith to let down her guard for an attack?

She slowed her breathing again. Serenity , she thought. Make contact with the presence, like Yuffie did with her clones. If it was too different from her, Yuffie had said, she wouldn’t be able to connect.

She struggled to push her mind out of herself, down into the Mako pool, through the Whispers-

Please. Give me something.

She squashed her fear down, drawing on her determination instead. Who’s out there?

A voice echoed back.

Just me .

A familiar voice. Aerith concentrated, redoubling her push outward. Her consciousness strained against a barrier- a veil between her world and the world under the Mako pool. 

Push. Feel. She gritted her teeth. Sweat pooled on her forehead. She was so close. She could almost-

FLASH

She saw herself. 

Her spirit. 

The specter of her upcoming death locked eyes with her and waved. 

Heya. 

Aerith waved back. She felt the question in her mind, coming from another’s.

You wanted to ask some questions?

Chapter Text

Chapter 11: Call and Response

Aerith stared at her future self, bewildered.

Her future self stared back. If she wasn’t bewildered, then she seemed surprised at what was happening. Surprised and… relieved?

I don’t remember doing this , she thought to herself. Aerith couldn’t tell if the thought originated with her, or her counterpart in the afterlife. 

A question arose from both minds. Or neither one. Are you doing this? Or am I? 

A response came. Isn’t it the same thing?

We did this before , the living one thought. On the beach . 

You did it, the spirit replied. I wasn’t on the other end. Mom thinks it might have been the first us.

Aerith balked. The first us?  

Then she reached for the spirit. Wait, Mom?

She says hi. The spirit winked. She also thinks I’m not supposed to do this.

We got away with it at Costa , Aerith argued. 

You got away with it at Costa. Also, no Weapons swimming around then. The spirit glanced downward. He says I can’t interfere. So we’ve gotta be fast.

The two perspectives converged as they saw each other through the other’s eyes.

There’s so much we don’t know. 

There’s so much we forgot. 

Their perspectives diverged again. 

But I’m remembering this now, the spirit said. The love. It sighed. It is a better fuel than hate.

Hate ? the living one asked. We hate someone that much?

Their perspectives merged a second time, a pair of amplitudes trying to synchronize. 

We hate the one that took us from our family . 

The fate-destroyer . 

The one-winged angel.

Hate wasn’t enough. 

But we love our family. And we love him .

Minds unmelded again. The spirit gasped. 

I love him. I had… forgotten. 

I never realized until now, the live one agreed. 

We’re going to lose him , they both realized. 

He’s going to lose us. 

They both thought back to his fragile psyche on the ship. They saw him now, holding his head between his hands as the Mako fumes washed over him. 

It will break him.

We can’t let that happen.

For a moment- for a fraction of a fraction of a moment, the two Aeriths merged in totality. In that instant, the timelessness of the Lifestream surged into her mind. Past, present, future. All at once. Aerith reached for the visions, grabbing fractions and locking them into her memories.

She strained her mind, reaching for images of the future. Fragmented. Prismatic. Undefined without an Arbiter.

So… we do die? one asked the other. 

A baleful nod. 

We die in his arms. There’s pain. And cold. 

A recollection. The act of dying was anguish itself. 

When? The question. 

Soon. The answer. Weeks. Maybe months. I… there’s a lot I can’t remember.

There must be a way to see, they thought. To save ourselves.  

To save him. 

We defied fate for a reason, right?

Right . 

The two Aeriths looked at each other.

Together, we can figure out how to stop this from happening . 

The dead one nodded in excitement. We can compare notes. Figure out how to change things.

The living one felt the pit in her stomach relax. Just a hair. Could she dare to hope? After seeing her spirit on the beach, she began each day with dread. But here, she saw a glimmer of something else. Something bright.

The living one’s head began to throb. She couldn't maintain this connection for long. Even as close as she was to the Lifestream, here at the reactor, she was pushing her abilities to the limit.

We won’t be able to do this anywhere else , said the dead one. I’ll never get closer to the surface than at a broken reactor like this . 

So what do we know? the living one asked. A thrill fluttered through her. What can we do?

There’s a few things that have come to me , said the spirit. First, we’ve got to find this… other us. The one you talked to on the beach. She has our memories from… before.

Aerith nodded. The “first” us. The source of the memories I gave Nanaki and Marlene. 

Second, Mom’s materia . The spirit spoke in Aerith’s mind, but the words came faster now. Excited. Hopeful. I think I know how to use it. Being near Mom has reminded me of some stuff. 

Aerith couldn’t stop herself from shaking. All the uncertainty she’d felt since leaving Midgar could fall away. She could help the others. She could survive. 

How do I use it? How do I bring the color back? Mine is dull. Blank. She leaned forward, nearly tipping into the Mako pool as she asked her spirit. 

The white Whispers twirled in the Mako below. Aerith’s spirit glanced down. 

It’s related to them. And to the third thing. I think it’s the most important lesson. 

The Whispers churned and swirled. A vein in Aerith’s forehead throbbed. Maintaining focus caused her whole body to ache. 

Third thing. Important lesson . She nodded, gritting her teeth in concentration. 

Yeah. You have to... the spirit Aerith wavered as the Whispers danced closer to the pool's surface. Were they… agitated? They lunged at the two Aeriths.

Then, their moment of synchronicity shattered. Aerith’s head erupted in pain and she saw stars.

 The white Whispers thundered from below in legions, erupting with fury and scorn. 

YOU WERE TOLD NOT TO INTERFERE. 

The Weapon leapt from the Mako pool, its impossible bulk climbing into the air to eclipse the sun. In a moment, Cloud was between it and Aerith, his sword out. 

YOU WERE TOLD NOT TO ALTER EVENTS THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN.  

Its fury coursed over Aerith’s mind in waves. The Weapon itself loomed over them, panting like a predator. 

FATE IS UNDEFINED. BUT THE PAST IS SET . 

DO NOT TAMPER WITH IT AGAIN!

The Weapon roared and disappeared within the pool. Any sense of its mind, or the Whispers, or even the other Aerith, vanished. 

She felt a barrier form over the pool. The whole world wavered, and when Aerith reached out with her senses, she felt nothing on the other side. The divide between life and death had become as sharp here as anywhere else in the world.

Aerith felt her mind snap back into her own point of view. She crumpled like a doll with cut strings. But Cloud was there. He tossed his sword to the side and caught her before she hit the ground.

“Aerith!” He lurched, still unsteady himself. He fell backward- away from the pool- with Aerith on top of him. 

He wrapped his arms around her and began to kick away from the edge of the ruins. Back to their backpacks. Back to safety.

Her future self was gone. The connection lost. She hadn’t learned the third piece of advice. Or how to restore her dull materia.

The glimmer of hope in her chest died, extinguished. 

She started to cry. She couldn't help it. 

It wasn’t fair. To realize- today of all days- what Cloud meant to her. And in the same afternoon confirm her worst fears about the end of their journey. Nothing to show for her efforts except for an angry Weapon. 

She’d made contact with herself. But the Planet had taken her once chance to learn about the future. The Weapon wouldn’t let her try again, and there weren’t any other ruined reactors that Aerith knew about.

She had been so close. So, so close. And now her chance to learn was gone.

The tears streamed down her face now. She sobbed into Cloud’s chest. His arms still wrapped around her like a shield against the world. They were well away from the Mako and its awful fumes. Away from Whispers and Weapons and futures. 

“Cloud, what do I do? What am I supposed to do?” 

She felt his arms tighten around her as he sat up. He had no way of knowing what she'd tried to do. What she'd seen.

 Still, he held her. Sobs wracked her body. She felt too heavy to support herself. 

“You do your best.” His voice cut through the storm churning through her. He squeezed her against his chest and his lips brushed the top of her head. 

Aerith froze. She couldn't help but think of how this scene had played out from Cloud’s point of view. 

She'd knelt by the pool in silence for hours while he struggled with Mako fumes. She fell, and in an instant he caught her. Without knowing how or why she hurt, he held her tight. He made the world feel okay.

“Remember our talk on the beach?” he asked. “Worry about the future when it comes. You’ll know what to do.”

He paused. Aerith could feel Cloud’s heart pounding through his chest.

“And whatever you decide…” 

He pulled away to look her in the eyes. His honest, beautiful eyes. 

“Whatever you decide, I’m with you.” His eyes glimmered as he looked at her. She could see how he looked at her. Cloud didn’t look at a Cetra, or a scientific curiosity, or some conduit of fate. 

He looked at Aerith. 

And she didn’t look back at a mercenary, or an ex-SOLDIER, or some fractured mind. 

She looked at Cloud. 

And as she felt her body against his, she thought about what it would mean to worry about the future when it came. 

She thought about making a decision for today. She stared into his eyes, and at his lips. She melted into his arms and pressed her forehead against his. 

She imagined kissing him. Tasting him. She wrapped her arms around him and held him close, a hair’s breadth separating his lips from hers. She imagined telling him everything, unloading her heart to him.

Still, some part of her held back. The kaleidoscope of visions she'd snatched from her future self told her to wait.

She felt Cloud's ragged breath on her skin. So close. He pulled her closer to him and ran a hand through her hair. He was so tender. His touch reminded her of the camp in Junon. After the Mindflayer fight, when he’d whispered sweet nothings in her ear…

She reached for his face and cupped his cheek. Cloud pulled back but leaned into her hand, just enough to look at her. She felt the warmth of his gaze, the softness of his face. She saw him break into a smile that he  never shared with the others. 

I love you , she wanted to say. 

I love you too , she wanted to hear back. 

She pressed her face into his chest, and the scent of him overwhelmed her. Oiled leather, clean linen, and sea breezes. 

She couldn’t kiss him. Couldn’t lead him on, with so many questions unanswered.

But she could drink him in, running her hands through his hair and down his back. She reveled in the undeniable realness of him against her.

Cloud didn’t try to kiss her either. He always took her lead, never pushing any boundaries. But he held her as his breath faltered. She sank into his arms, still sobbing in frustration. So close to answers that the Weapon ripped away. 

“I’m with you,” Cloud murmured. “I’m here. No matter what.” 

“I know you are,” Aerith whispered. 

“Then let’s just be here,” he said simply. He rolled over, cradling her in his arms. 

She shifted to get a view of the mountains, grateful that he hadn’t tried to kiss her. If he did, she wouldn’t have been able to hold back. It was a point of no return. 

But this? The embrace? It didn’t need to be anything more. Just two normal people taking a break on their hike. That was all she could give him for now. She allowed herself this indulgence as she snuggled into his arms.

And he didn’t ask for anything more. He held her as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Not a friend. Not a lover. Just… Cloud. Protecting her. Keeping her together like that tattered gardenia he held in Kalm.

They gazed up at the sky, and watched the sun begin to sink below the mountaintops. Neither of them seemed eager to talk. Words might shatter the spell between them. 

Instead, Aerith started to hum. For all her talk of wanting to sing in front of others, she had no idea what kind of singing voice she had. She had always been too shy to do it in front of others. 

She hummed her mother’s lullaby- an old Cetra song that always comforted her in Shinra's labs. It was a simple tune, but it had always brought Aerith peace.

After a few bars, Cloud turned to look at her. Recognition dawned on his face. 

“I know that song.” He used his other hand to tap out the notes on the ground. “I think I… dreamed about it once.” 

He started to hum the melody too, the tenor of his voice adding depth to her soprano. 

Aerith’s voice faltered as she thought back to that horrible night on the Shinra-8. After Jenova’s attack, when she saw Cloud huddled on the surface like the other blackcloaks. She remembered getting him situated in a deck chair, singing to him until he fell asleep.

He had never brought that night up. He never spoke of the times when his mind frayed. When his eyes glowed especially bright as the Mako in his blood flared up and stole his sense of self away. 

The more time Aerith spent with Cloud, the more she realized how fragile he was. In so many ways, his strength was an illusion- a thin, brittle shell protecting a broken soul. She didn’t know how to fix it. She didn’t know if anyone but Cloud could fix it. 

But, as she sifted through her future self's visions, she saw what would happen if he cracked. She had seen them before the Weapon broke their connection. 

She saw the life leave his eyes as she died in his arms. She saw Cloud- her Cloud- sink into the depths of the Mako in his eyes as the emotionless warrior emerged for good. 

Losing her would cause Cloud to lose a piece of himself that he’d never get back. 

Whatever happens, you can’t fall in love with me.  

The memory of their nighttime rendezvous in Elmyra’s garden resurfaced in her mind. The night before he came to save her, when she sent her spirit to him in a dream. When she still had power and knowledge. 

If he fell in love with her, he would be lost. 

Better the small sting of unrequited love than heartbreak that splintered the soul. 

She couldn’t kiss him. Couldn’t declare her love to him. She wasn’t even sure if this - whatever this was- would break him if the worst happened.

Don’t I get a say in this? 

Who was she to make decisions on other people's behalf? Hadn't she and Cloud fought about that? Who did she think she was?

Someone that knew better. Someone that had to be better. The stakes were bigger than the two of them.

Could the world still be saved if one of its heroes died and another one shattered into pieces?

Cloud finished humming and sat up, still holding her. “If there’s more, I don’t know it.” He glanced at her and squeezed her hand. “It’s a good song.”

Aerith sat up too and stuffed her anxieties away. No use thinking in circles without more information. She'd need to sift through the fragments she'd managed to grab from the Lifestream.

With a soft smile, Cloud got to his feet. “Hey. Aerith.”

She forced herself to look up at him and return his grin. “Yeah?”

“I’m… still glad I get a say in this.”

Aerith looked up at her Cloud, her heart swelling and breaking at the same time. She took his hand to stand up, and then gave it a small squeeze.

The late afternoon wind shifted around them. The acrid fumes of the reactor filled the air once again. Cloud grimaced and rubbed his hands through his hair. He swayed, unsteady on his feet.

“I guess we’d better get back,” Cloud continued. His voice sounded chipper. Too chipper. “Lazard’s gonna get mad if I don’t get the report in by end of day.”

Lazard? Report?

Aerith watched Cloud stand up straighter, his hands on his hips. He shook his legs out and did a few squats before looking down at her with a grin. 

His eyes shone with Mako. 

The fumes , Aerith realized. He’s losing himself . 

Cloud marched over to their packs, noticing the uneaten food. “Wow. Not like me to skip lunch.” He shouldered both packs around his sword. 

He took a step, then paused. He wobbled on his feet as his jaw tightened. 

“Cloud?”

Aerith approached him. He winced when he heard his name and pressed his palms against his temples.

“Cloud? You okay?” 

He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut. 

“Hey. You’re right.” Aerith grabbed his hand and started marching toward the trail. “We have to… get that report in. You coming?”

He nodded and, but stood rooted in place.

Aerith gingerly took one of the backpacks from him and strapped it on. He didn’t resist. She bit her lip and glanced at the materia in her bracelets. 

Would more magic make him worse?

Before she could overthink, Aerith sent a wave of healing energy through Cloud. The smallest Cure spell she could conjure. 

Nothing.

She tried Poisona, then Esuna. No response. Cloud stood, dazed, in the same place. His eyes still glowed bright enough to be visible in the daylight. 

Aerith took his hand and tried tugging him toward the hiking trail. “Can you come this way, Cloud?”

He shook his head and dug his heels in. His voice became flat. Lifeless.“You can’t tell me what to do.” He snatched his arm away, then and crossed it slowly. “I’m not a puppet.” Any emotion had left his voice, and he moved slowly. Like a blackcloak.

Aerith wasn’t strong enough to force him back. Should she go back to town? Barret or Tifa might be able to carry him. But could she leave him alone for so long? He could wander off. Or get attacked. 

“No, you’re not a puppet,” she agreed. Maybe playing along would help. “You’re a SOLDIER and you’ve got a report to turn in.” 

Cloud perked up at the word SOLDIER. There we go . 

Aerith marched down the path toward the mine carts. “Up and at ‘em, SOLDIER!” 

“SOLDIER.” His dull, robotic voice broke her heart. Shinra-8 all over again.

Cloud snapped to attention- slowly- and began following her, as if on autopilot. His eyes still glowed, and she could tell he wasn’t actually seeing what was around him. 

Got to get free of the fumes , Aerith thought. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the strange white-clad Whispers follow her. Were they trying to make sure she didn’t double back to the reactor? 

“You shoo,” she said. She waved her arms like she was trying to scare off a bird. They didn’t scatter, but they didn’t get any closer either. 

“Are those ghosts.” Cloud spoke in a monotone. He raised a limp arm and pointed at the Whispers. 

Aerith glanced back at the Whispers and hissed, “I’m not going to break your rules. Go back into the Mako.” She reached out with her mind, trying to reform the kind of connection she had with the Weapon or her future self. 

They quivered at the mental touch. Aerith pushed harder. “We’ll talk soon. But I have more pressing matters first.” 

They loomed for a second longer, then darted back to the reactor. Aerith wiped beads of sweat from her forehead. 

“See Cloud? No ghosts!” 

“No ghosts.” 

“Just a bad dream. You’ll wake up soon.” 

“Bad dream,” he echoed. “And. A good dream. Holding her.”

She didn’t want to implant any false memories. But if Cloud could think holding her had been a dream…

No. She was done trying to swat his feelings away. He did get a say in this. 

“Not a dream, Cloud. Something to look back on. And something to look forward to.” 

“Not a dream.”

He walked down the path with Aerith, each step surer than the last. He started to hum snatches of Ifalna’s lullaby in time with his pace. 

Aerith started up the melody and took Cloud by the hand. She needed to put as much distance between them and the reactor as possible. After a few minutes, the air began to clear. Aerith took out her staff and sent a gust of Aero in the direction of the reactor, driving the rest of the Mako fumes away. 

Cloud shook his head and looked up. His eyes were a dull blue again. He took a deep breath in and turned to Aerith. 

She held her breath, watching him for signs of change. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she waited to see if he’d perk up. It wasn’t more than a few seconds that they stood still, but it felt like hours. She needed him to wake up. To be okay.

A small smile tugged at his lips as his eyes drew into focus. “Loopy, huh?”

Relief bloomed in Aerith as she saw the recognition in his eyes. “Loopy?”

“At the start of the hike. You said you had a little altitude sickness. Made you loopy.” Cloud rubbed the back of his neck. “I think it just hit me too.” 

He glanced up at the sun and frowned when he noticed how low it was in the sky. “We made it to the reactor, right?” 

A single white Whisper loomed over Cloud’s shoulder. He didn’t react- Aerith knew it had come for her. 

“Yeah. We made it to the reactor and the fumes got to you. You hung back and I tried to meditate. “

Cloud nodded. “That’s right. I saw you kneel down.” 

The Whisper spun around her, as if warning her not to reveal what she saw. 

Aerith turned over the conversation with herself. The conclusions. 

Better the small sting of unrequited love. 

If Cloud lost her, he would break. 

“And then I…” Cloud tilted his head. “Dozed off, I think.”  

“You fell asleep? On the clock?” Aerith teased him with a wink. “Some bodyguard.” 

“Half on the clock, half off the clock, remember?” Cloud smirked and took her hand. “Regular people doing regular stuff. Like naps.” 

“Naps are nice,” Aerith agreed. Above her, the Whisper pulsed and gave a small bow. Was it giving her permission?

“Good dreams don’t hurt either,” he mumbled. 

Aerith wrapped her arms around his. “Not a dream, remember?” 

His breath caught. “Not a dream?”

She looked into his eyes again. The glow was starting to return to normal. “Not a dream. But… something just for us, okay? Just for today.”

He nodded. “Just until the hike is over, right?”

They walked down the path in silence. Aerith kept her arm threaded through Cloud’s as they hiked.

“I like these moments,” she admitted. “Normal people moments.” She rested her head on his shoulder. 

Cloud swallowed. “I guess… SOLDIERs and Cetra don’t get to have moments like these?”

They walked. Aerith thought for a long time.

“I don’t think they do,” she mumbled. Her throat burned, but she wouldn’t cry in front of him. She glanced down at her feet. 

He nodded. “Then we’ll just have to find more moments to be normal.” 

Aerith looked up from her feet and saw Cloud eyeing her. A fragile sort of hope danced across his face.

I have to be strong.  

She should let him down gently. 

But I can’t be that strong . 

Was it selfish to fall in love?

I want to save the world and live in it with you . 

She made her decision. 

“I’ll take the moments,” she whispered. 

With her arms around his, she squeezed him as tight as she could. 

“I’ll take all the moments you can find.” 

Cloud squeezed her back. “Then let’s be normal. Just until the hike is over.” 

***

Aerith and Cloud might have climbed into the mine cart. 

But the world’s last Cetra and her bodyguard climbed out. They walked a respectful distance apart as they approached North Corel's entrance. 

The bodyguard dutifully carried both of their packs back to the inn. The contents of their picnic were uneaten. He held open the door for the Cetra, who gave him a polite smile but stayed outside.

“I’m gonna go check on the gondola,” she said. “See how early we can head out tomorrow morning.” 

He nodded. “I’ll round up the others for dinner. See you in a bit?”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. If she did, she knew their facade would shatter. She couldn’t risk that. Not without more answers. 

“Yeah. See you in a bit.”

He lingered in the doorway for a moment longer than he should have, staring at his feet. 

“Hey.”

“Hmm?” She cocked her head.

“Normal people moments. We’ll find more.” He swallowed. “I promise.” 

She smiled, still looking toward the edge of town. “I’ll hold you to that, Mister Merc.” She set off toward the Gondola. She heard the door to the inn close behind her. 

I wish we didn’t need promises . 

She cast her mind out, trying to sense her future self in a futile gesture. Useless. She needed to be closer to the Lifestream. And far from a Weapon. 

I’ll find those moments too . 

She crested the hill to the gondola platform and saw Barret sitting alone. His legs dangled over the edge of the cliff, and he held his dog tags- his secret lockets- in his hand. 

“Ropeway should be ready to go tomorrow morning,” he rumbled. “It’s a long climb to the Saucer. Figured I’d fill you all in tomorrow.” 

Aerith sat next to him. “Fill us in?”

He waved his hand around vaguely. “On all my shit. With the town. The reactor.” 

“Ah.” 

“Just need another night with Myrna first.” He squeezed the locket against his chest. “It’s funny. Being back here. The sights. The smells. I keep expecting to go home and see her.” 

He replaced the locket around his neck. “Then I look down, and realize…” he gestured with his prosthetic. 

His voice cracked. “I wish I had more time with her.” He stood up and lumbered over to his bedroll, taking out some provisions to eat alone. “Feels like half of my heart died the day she did.”

Barret stared at her his eyes deep with meaning. “But I made the choice to give her that half. And I’d rather live the rest of my life with half a heart than be in a world where I never had her at all.” 

“You’re strong enough to say that,” she muttered. “Not everyone is.” 

“Maybe not. But I wouldn’t be as strong as I am without Myrna.” 

He grunted. “Go get your dinner. And… thanks. For being patient with an old man while he works his shit out.” 

"Nothing to be thankful for," she said. "Friends help each other." She turned back to the inn.

"Aerith." Barret took his sunglasses off and looked at her. “You bring out the best in us.”

Aerith bowed. “Only because you guys bring out the best in me.” 

***

The rest of them ate dinner in the inn’s common room. It was packed with locals, so the five of them squeezed around a small booth meant for two. They choked down the same slop the innkeeper served for breakfast along with cheap beer and canned vegetables. 

No one seemed eager to talk about what they got up to that day, but the conversation flowed easily anyway. They gossiped, feeding on the company as much as the food. Tifa described the best cocktail for each of them, and Yuffie recited Wutaian horoscopes to everyone. Idle chatter. Serious talk could wait.

One by one, they made their way back to bed. Aerith was surprised to see how well insulated the sleeping quarters were from the sounds of the common room when the door was fully shut. 

Eventually, the locals all went home, and the innkeeper turned off the lights to shut the bar down. 

Aerith tossed and turned, the Whispers and her fate racing through her head. She heard the others snoring peacefully and was glad that they, at least, could get some rest. 

In the early hours of the morning, Aerith resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn’t get any more sleep. She rose and looked at the formless lumps of the others in the room. Cloud, and his comforter, were missing. She chuckled. If the others were too loud he tended to sleep outside, like he had that night in Kalm.

She slipped on her boots and padded out to the common room to meditate. It was too dark to see much, and she closed the door to the beds so she wouldn’t disturb the others. Across the room, she heard shuffling. 

She strained her eyes and saw the outline of Cloud as he tossed his blanket over the piano to deaden the sound. He sat at the bench and tapped out a rhythm to himself. 

She thought about Barret’s words again. Could she let someone live with half a heart? 

For that matter, could she go on in the Lifestream with half of one?

Cloud played a single chord. It was quieter than she expected, even with the blanket on top. 

No decisions tonight , she decided. She let Cloud play in peace. 

He played the chord again. It was light. Hopeful. 

Note by note, he picked out a tune using the notes from the chord. Aerith gasped and covered her mouth to staunch the noise. Cloud didn’t react as he repeated the melody.

It was a simple tune. One used to calm children and scare away nightmares. Cloud rolled through it again, more confident as he committed the notes to memory. 

He built on the tune. He added his left hand, laying down soft, complementary chords. They sounded like daylight trickling through worn rafters. Playful notes, like dust suspended in the sunbeams in an old church joined in. 

He returned to the lullaby’s melody with his right hand. He embellished, adding flourishes like petals bursting from a bud. The melody grew like a vine, encircling the song with delicate color. 

Aerith closed her eyes, picturing sunlight on old pews and stone floors. The same notes again, soft. Gentle. 

His music was quiet. Thoughtful. He shifted from the simple tune to a more complex melody. Aerith pictured colors swirling around the piano. Yellows, whites, pinks, and greens twirled in her mind’s eye. His piano song yesterday invoked starlight and whispered promises. By contrast, this one conjured pictures of sunshine and laughter. 

Cloud played each note tenderly, his fingers caressing the keys with care. The song seemed fragile somehow, in a way the other one didn’t. Cloud played as if he were asking a question to the quiet, empty room.

Is this real?

Can it be real?  

Aerith wanted to cry out to him. To answer the song with kisses that would never stop. She wanted to take him by the hand and show him the world of color and sunlight that his music begged to see. She could show him all the words unsaid in her heart.

But she didn’t. 

The future hung over her like a shadow, dampening her hope.

Not until I know I won’t lose him. 

Carefully, Aerith snuck back to bed and centered her breathing, reaching out for a sense of the future. She would see it, somehow. And she would defy it if that’s what it took. 

Beyond the cracked door, the notes of Ifalna’s lullaby drifted from the piano until the sun rose. 

Chapter Text

Chaos in a Saucer

FLASH

Panting, Aerith rose to her feet and sent a healing spell through her aching body. She leaned on her staff for support and felt her wounds begin to fade. I can’t keep this up , she realized. The onslaught of fists, feet, elbows, and shins was too much. She had never felt so outclassed in a fight before. 

In front of her, Tifa smirked and cracked her knuckles. Scorch marks covered her arms, and ice encased her left leg. With a grunt, she slammed a fist into her frozen knee. The ill-aimed Blizzard spell shattered.

Roaring, screaming voices thundered around the two of them. 

“Don’t tell me you’re wearing out,” Tifa jeered. “What happened to the Wall Market Warrior?”

Aerith summoned an arcane ward at her feet. “Just… warming... up…” she gasped. 

A siren blared, and the clamoring around them grew to a fever pitch. 

Aerith launched a silvery spear of light at Tifa, who rolled under the missile and shot forward with a yell. She came out of the tuck with a haymaker of a punch hurtling toward Aerith’s head.

She ducked. Cutting it a little close there, huh?

 And Tifa’s fist collided with the enemy gladiator behind Aerith. 

At the same time, the radiant spear from Aerith’s staff impaled a second gladiator. He dropped his staff with a grunt. 

“How about this round you take the boxer, and I take the mage?” Aerith struggled to hear her own voice over the thumping music and the uproar of the audience. Still, Tifa nodded with a grin. 

The overhead lights pulsed like a nightclub, and dark thumping music thundered. The Gold Saucer’s Colosseum was a spectacle to behold: a cavalcade of color and energy. Bleachers full of hooting fans rose hundreds of feet into the air around them.

A perfect place to blow off some steam.

“You wanna do something about my burns from last round first?” Tifa whooped as she slipped a combo from her opponent and vaulted away.

“You wanna actually use the Curaga materia I gave you?” Aerith quipped back. She sent a volley of healing magic Tifa’s way, then followed up with a barrier spell. 

Tifa’s skin cleared as a glowing shell settled over it. “Casting’s your job!” She cartwheeled over to the gladiator that tried sneaking up on Aerith and slugged him in the jaw. “Stop the dilly-dallying and light him up!”

Aerith turned to the other gladiator- a waifish man dressed like a Midgar bandit. He raised a wand and Aerith knocked it out of his hand with a blast of wind. Twirling her staff, she followed up with a fireball. It launched the enemy spellcaster into the bleachers with a whoosh. A bell clanged and the crowd cheered. 

“Hey, I think if we can ring out these guys it counts as a win!” 

“That would have been good to know!” Tifa grabbed the other gladiator’s wrist and planted her feet. His eyes widened. 

“Hey! Wait! I’ve got a bad back! I can tap out! I can-” Tifa didn’t give him the chance to finish as she flipped him over her back, hurling him into the audience with a yowl. 

The bell rang a second time and the overhead lights of Musclehead Colosseum flashed. Victory fanfare played and the announcer screamed as hype overtook him. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t believe it!” The announcer shimmied down to the ring from above. His sequined suit glittered in the spotlight. “Two newcomers have DECIMATED the Musclehead Circuit! Give it up for…” 

“Oh god,” Tifa cringed. Aerith grinned like a madwoman, showing as many teeth as she could. She wouldn’t let the smile slip from her face until everyone had heard her brilliant pseudonyms. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, I said give it up for Maycomb Blume and Bobbi Weave!” 

Tifa groaned as Aerith cackled all the way to the winner’s podium. The Gold Saucer announcer handed them their trophy to thunderous applause. 

Tifa gave a pageant-worthy smile and waved to the crowd. Through her teeth, she hissed,  “ seriously? We sound like drag queens.”

“Keep smiiiiling,” Aerith sang through her own grin. “It’s not like we could use our real names.” She waved to the audience and hoisted the trophy. 

“Still. Bobbi Weave?” 

“It was either that or Fista Fury.” 

“You’re a dork.” 

“An ass-kicking dork.” 

Tifa chuckled and threw an arm around Aerith’s shoulder. They bowed to the crowd and walked back to the lockers outside Battle Square. 

God, she'd needed a girl's night out.

“So what do you want to do next?” Tifa’s bright words and brighter smile almost matched Aerith’s own. 

“Hmm. Chocobo Square? Could be nice to bet on someone else this time.” Aerith held her hand up for a high five. 

Tifa slapped it and held her arm out. “Lead on…”

FLASH

Deep within the Lifestream, Aerith watched the gondola lumber away from North Corel. She centered herself, and prepared to enter her memory of the Gold Saucer. 

Ifalna didn’t come to check on her. Aerith didn’t blame her. Even from her current spot, she felt the churning array of Mako reactors around her. They fueled the Gold Saucer’s insatiable thirst for electricity. A once-lush forest decayed into desert as a consequence.

Like Midgar, the Saucer used a fleet of reactors acting in tandem. That made it dangerous for beings in the Lifestream to linger. Still, Aerith sensed important memories here. Insights she had to relearn.

This is way worse than Junon , she thought to herself. She felt herself settle into the gondola. She remembered Barret’s confessions to the group: his life in North Corel. The reactor. The explosion. 

Colors and noise battered Aerith’s soul. The gondola rose into the air and she tried to make sense of her memory. The Lifestream was so thin here, so brittle…

FLASH

Cloud’s pianowork from earlier that morning still lingered in her ears. She stepped onto the gondola. The feeling of his arms around her lingered too. He still seemed weak from the Mako fumes yesterday, but he gave her a faint smile as they boarded. His memory of the day before was hazy, but some part of him must have felt their connection. She had to believe that. 

He should get to bed early tonight , she thought to herself…

FLASH

She skipped through the Gold Saucer. It felt like something out of a storybook. Massive domes reached into the sky as fireworks and lasers lit up the night. 

Focus, Aerith…

There was dancing. Music. They walked through the main plaza…

FLASH

She shifted. Were those bullet holes in the walls? Wanted: A man with a gun for an arm …

Panic. Fear. That couldn’t be Barret, could it? He wouldn’t attack civilians…

FLASH

The hotel looked like a haunted house. No spare rooms…

The reactors gorge on the Lifestream. The desert is lifeless and dead.

She shifted. “So you’re a fortune teller, huh?” 

She heard her own voice, and then a reply. 

“Aye. An augur of the very future!” 

Her heart thumped. “Could you see what happens to me?” 

“I could sure try, lassie!” 

A friend? A traitor? Who…was…that…?

FLASH

She was in a cage. Hot, dry desert air. They were all counting on Cloud to free them…

This place is so important. Yet so barren. 

She couldn’t meditate here. Too much noise, too much distraction…

So many important conversations here. You have to remember…

Tifa and Aerith on the skywheel. Earnest words. Bared hearts..

FLASH

Aerith spun and twisted on the thin strands of the Lifestream that remained in this desolate place. Her spirit felt pulled toward the reactors. If she became Mako she would be undone…

FLASH

When to float, and when to swim? She needed to know where she was going. She rolled onto her back and felt the eddy-like current of souls around her.

The welcoming party. The hotel. She remembered wanting to explore with Cloud.  

“But I didn’t.” She spoke the words out loud, trying to center herself. 

“Tifa was in the hallway. I remember… she wanted to go out with him too?”

Shouldn’t have put the ‘business’ talk off for that long…

Tifa turned to her in the hallway and lit up. “How about a girl’s night? No one else wants to go out right now.”

Cloud had turned in early. He didn’t explore with anyone…

Event square. The colosseum. Brains and brawn. Two friends…

Then they went to Chocobo Square. But the races were over.

“Wanna ride the skywheel instead?” Tifa’s idea.

There! Hold on to that! From the Lifestream, Aerith sensed echoes of herself. She couldn’t flow through the Lifestream here. It was too thin. She dragged herself, like a swimmer, into the memory….

FLASH

“So how was the hike yesterday?” 

Aerith felt like her head was full of cotton. She stared out the window of the Skywheel without seeing anything. The cool evening air of the desert blew in from a crack in the window. She took a breath. Calmed herself. She was in a skywheel gondola with Tifa. Her body ached- the good kind of ache- from the workout in the colosseum earlier that night.

“...huh?” She blinked and turned to Tifa. 

“One of the gladiators ring your bell that hard?” She grinned and handed Aerith a bottle of something cold. “I said, how was the hike yesterday? Down to the broken reactor?”

Aerith took the drink with a grin and pressed it against the side of her head. Why was it so hard to concentrate here? Well, the lights, music, booze, and head trauma from a pit fight don’t help . 

“Oh. Yeah, the hike. Yeah! It was good!” Aerith laughed as her stomach began to sour. It sounded fake, even to her. I definitely didn’t fall into your oldest friend’s arms while sobbing into his chest. Totally didn’t let him see how scared I was of the future.

Absolutely didn't fall in love with him.

Tifa cocked an eyebrow. “Cloud said you wanted to go because you sensed something down there. Kind of like the Lifesprings or the summon shrines Chadley has us check out.” She handed Aerith a bottle opener. 

Aerith popped the cap off her drink and took a sip. “False alarm,” she said. The words emerged in a rush. Too fast. “I sat by the Mako pool for almost an hour while Cloud napped. Nothing doing.” 

She wasn’t sure why she kept the truth from Tifa. If there was anyone she could confide in- about her visions, about her impending death- it would be her. 

Of course, telling your friend you kept seeing a portent of your own death didn't seem wise. In fact, it'd be a great way to get demoted out of combat duty. Again. Gotta be strong. At least until I have more to share . 

“You know, you can talk to me if something’s going on,” Tifa said with a frown. “I meant what I said on the ship. I’m here for you.” 

Shit. Aerith’s fib had lasted all of two seconds.  “I…” 

“Yeah?”

“I’m working through some stuff. Cetra stuff. And I don’t really know how to put it in words yet.” She looked at Tifa. “I promise when I have a better picture of… whatever this is, I’ll tell you. But not now. Is that okay?”

Tifa swallowed and looked away. She seemed to be alluding to something else on her mind. “Yeah. That’s okay.”

Aerith took another sip of her drink and grimaced. “This is terrible, by the way. What is it?”

“Ummm… Stampenbrau?” Tifa studied her own bottle’s label. A dog in an old-school Shinra army helmet winked at her. The little beagle seemed like an odd mascot for a beer brand. 

“Guess Shinra’s found a way to sell the runoff from Mako reactors,” Aerith remarked. “How was your day yesterday, by the way?” 

If Tifa copped to how bad Aerith wanted to change the subject, she didn’t let on. “It was fine. I spent most of the day at the clinic in town.”

Aerith nodded. “Barret mentioned it was the same doctor that treated you. After, um… Nibelheim.” 

A nod. “Doctor Sheiran. A miracle worker.” Tifa set her bottle aside. “I don’t think I’d be here if anyone else had done the operation.” She winced. “Operations, actually.” 

“You needed a checkup?” Aerith nursed her own beer despite the taste. Anything that could take the edge off the feeling she got when she lied was a welcome addition to the night. 

“No. Never felt better, myself,” Tifa said. 

She flexed her arms and muscles bulged, but her face turned glum. “I… went to ask questions about Cloud, actually.” Her face fell. “I’m worried about him.”

Leave it to Tifa to spend her one day off trying to help someone else feel better .

Aerith took a long pull of her drink. “You notice it too, huh?” She grew more quiet, and even the din outside the gondola felt softer. 

“There are lots of old people. There are lots of SOLDIERs.” Tifa quipped. “There aren’t a lot of old SOLDIERs.”

Aerith remembered hearing the saying around the slums. Even when degradation wasn’t as well known, people could connect the dots. Enhanced people started acting... funny a few years after their discharge.

The skywheel gondola swayed in the breeze. Aerith saw light and motion outside, but kept her focus on Tifa’s words.

“I told Doctor Sheiran about how Cloud had been acting. And how he can zone out sometimes.” Her voice trembled. “And those things he claims he sees…” 

Blackcloaks attacking him. Inky feathers falling from the sky. Sephiroth hunting him .

Cloud muttered in his sleep. Everyone else had picked up on his paranoia at this point. 

“Doc said it was… um… a pretty typical profile for someone with Mako poisoning.” Tifa crossed her arms across her chest. 

“Is that different than degradation?” Aerith didn’t know much about the enhancements that made SOLDIERs, well, SOLDIERs. But she knew it involved Mako. Zack had tried to explain it to her once. 

“Yeah, it is. Anyone can get Mako poisoning. Jessie’s dad had it.” As she clutched her own arms, Tifa leaned forward, shrinking into herself. “It’s almost always fatal,” she whispered.

She took a breath and looked out the window, brightening. “The good news is I’ve never seen the worst symptom in Cloud.” 

Tifa looked back at Aerith and pointed at her eyes. “Doctor Sheiran said the only guarantee of Mako poisoning is when the patient’s eyes glow. And it's gotta be bright. That’s a sign they’re having a fit. That’s the point of no return.” 

Aerith felt like someone had punched her in the gut. “SOLDIER eyes always glow a little,” she said.

“No, he said it’s different- the bad sign is bright green. That’s what we need to watch for.” Tifa hummed. “So we need to worry about the degradation, but at least it’s not the worst-case scenario.” 

“Tifa…” Aerith didn’t know what to say. How could she tell her about the night aboard the ship? The afternoon at the ruined reactor? 

Intimate moments. Cloud at his most vulnerable. Bodies nestled against each other. Sharing strength. Sharing each other. 

Tifa looked across the gondola at Aerith, a wordless plea on her lips. “His eyes have never glowed bright green. So he’s going to be okay.” 

Aerith shook her head. 

“He’s… never had his eyes glow bright. It’s never happened,” Tifa insisted.

“He lost himself that night on the ocean, Tifa.” 

He looked so frail then, huddled around himself. His head had darted back and forth like a panicked animal. And his eyes shone like sickly green neon. “I could see his eyes from across the deck.” Her voice cracked. “Bright green.” 

Tifa ran her hands over her skirt, tugging at the hem. She still stared at Aerith. “No, that can’t be right. He was fine. We fought that… thing down in the lower decks and we went back to bed.” 

Her hands still worked back and forth across her skirt. “Could you have had a bad dream?”

Aerith still thought about his hand in hers that night. The heat. The peace of looking up at the stars with him as his shaking stopped and his breathing slowed. She remembered when he wrapped his arms around her and she fell asleep, her head on his chest…

“It wasn’t a dream.” It was the realest thing that ever happened to me . 

Tears dripped into Tifa’s lap. Her shoulders started to shake. She squeezed her eyes shut, but didn’t cry out loud. “If it progresses to bright eyes,” she recited,  “Mako poisoning is fatal. Survival rate is less than one in seven hundred. No known treatment.” 

Fatal. 

No known treatment. 

Aerith heard the words, but she didn’t process them. Didn’t let them find purchase in her mind. The beer bottle fell from her hand and hit the floor of the gondola with a thump.

Tifa took a sharp, shuddering breath in and pressed her palms into her eyes. “I can’t lose him, Aerith. I can’t.” 

Lose him . 

No, that wasn’t right. No one else could die on this mission.

I’m the one that has to die . 

The others would be fine. They had to be fine. 

Aerith felt her throat grow dry. She didn’t cry with Tifa. She could barely come to terms with her own death. And on some level, she thought she could make peace with her fate- if the others survived. 

She moved to sit next to Tifa on her side of the table, feeling numb. The gondola shifted as Aerith moved, and she settled into the plushy bench. She wrapped an arm around her, eyes unfocused, staring straight ahead. 

Tifa leaned into Aerith’s hug. “He’s all I have left.”

Aerith squeezed her, coming back to her senses. “That’s not true. You have me. And Barret. And Marlene.” 

She shook her head. “It’s not the same. I love you all so much, but it’s… not the same way that I… um, love him.” 

Aerith froze. Love?

Tifa caught herself. “Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever said that out loud before.” 

“You love him?” Aerith asked quietly. 

“I love you all,” Tifa corrected. “But… in different ways.” 

She cleared her throat and continued. “Barret and I joined Avalanche at the same time. But we had so much rage , you know? We needed to point it at something. And I met you, and Red, and Yuffie after the fight against Shinra started.” Her voice fell to a hush. “After I had started… killing people.” 

Aerith nodded slowly.

“Cloud’s all that’s left from before,” Tifa muttered. “First I lost my mom. Then my dad. Then my village. All gone.” She squeezed her eyes shut, blinking away tears that wouldn’t stop falling. “Then my bar. Then Jessie.” 

She shuddered into Aerith’s hug.

“Cloud is the only piece of the world that knows me from before I became a killer,” she murmured. “If I lose him…” she clenched her fists. “I lose myself. I lose the part of me from before all the battles started.”

She sat up and looked Aerith in the eye. “I lose my way back. To the person I’d hoped I could be again. After this is all over.” 

Aerith’s head fuzzed and the world grew dim. From outside the memory, Aerith felt the Saucer’s reactors churn the Lifestream. A hole in her mind. She drifted outside her body like she had at Costa Beach.

Focus , she told herself. She centered her breathing and forced her spirit back into her past self’s body. Some time had passed. 

The conversation continued. 

From the Lifestream, Aerith had missed it. The reactors strained her soul, and she couldn’t stay focused on the memory.

The skywheel ground to a halt, and the doors opened. Their ride was over. 

“Tifa…” Aerith didn’t have the words. Didn’t know what to do, or say. 

Tifa stood up, her eyes dry. She set her shoulders and planted her feet. The moment she had to go into the real world again, she acted strong again. At least, she pretended to be strong.

“I’m going to save him, Aerith. He made a promise to save me, once. But I can do it for him, too.”

They walked back to the central plaza when the screams started. 

FLASH

Heat. Dry air. Even in the shade, the day was sweltering.

So thirsty … 

No one had given them food or water since locking them in the cage. 

The cage?  

Corel Prison. Chasing the man with a gun for an arm. Not Barret. It couldn’t be Barret…

Aerith opened her eyes. She must have dozed off. Or blacked out. 

Imprisoned again . 

She took deep breaths, trying not to let the panic overwhelm her. Trapped. Cage. Needles. Experiments. 

Pain.

Nanaki crawled into her lap like an oversized pet. “Hey. Hey.” He kept his voice deep. The others in the cage- Yuffie, Tifa, and the little robot that called himself Cait Sith- encircled her. 

Like scientists. Poking and prodding and shocking. Gas and injections. Caged. Trapped.

Aerith gasped. 

Imprisoned again .

Her mother’s waxy skin and sunken eyes. Bars on the door just like then. Trapped.

She felt her eyes dart back and forth, refusing to see the world around her. Instead, images of sterile walls and cold steel clashed with the grime on the floor and the heat in the air.

“We’re okay. It’s not the lab. We’re going to get out. Not the lab.” Nanaki pressed his head against her chest. He was heavy. The weight on her helped slow her breathing. 

No way out. The pain would come again. The pain always came again.

Ifalna wasn’t there. Had they taken her again? Would she come back unconscious or screaming? Aerith was powerless to stop them. 

She sucked air in and out but still felt short of breath.

Cage.

Trapped.

Yuffie squatted next to her and took her hand. “Serenity, remember? Serene.” 

Serene. Breathing. Center yourself.

Aerith nodded and took a deep breath. Then another. 

Tifa stood up and gestured for the others to step back, giving Aerith space. She crouched next to her. “We got out last time, right? This is real. But it’s not forever.”

Aerith slowed her breathing. Felt Nanaki in her lap. Tifa’s hands on hers.

Friends surrounded her. No- family surrounded her. 

Keeping her safe.

Aerith nodded and looked up. She forced herself to think of the here and now, not what had been.

She took deep breaths. Let the fear wash over her, then ebb away. Not trapped. Not really.

Tifa gave her a smile and helped her up.

“Thanks, guys. I guess… captivity doesn’t agree with me.” Aerith tried to keep her voice light. 

“No need to explain,” Tifa encouraged. “But we’ve been here before.” She grinned. “Think of it like Don Corneo’s mansion.”

“The slumlord?” Cait Sith piped up in alarm. Why would a Saucer employee know about Midgar politics?

“Long story,” Aerith said. “But Tifa’s right. We got out then, we’ll get out now.” 

“Come to think of it,” Tifa wondered. “Cloud saved us that time too.”

Fragments of the past few hours filtered back to Aerith. The Capo of Corel Prison- a thug named Gus- had released Cloud to win a Chocobo derby in exchange for their freedom. 

The man with a gun for an arm was still wanted for the attack last night. They had to clear Barret’s name and escape. And so Cloud had been forced to leave them- at least for a while- and win a race in the Saucer.

And the rest of them waited in Gus’s captivity.

Tifa leaned against one of the cage walls, a fond smile spreading across her face. Yuffie danced over to her. “Oooh! And what does this smile mean?” 

She planted her hands on her hips and peered at Tifa. “ Cloud saved you, huh?”

Still smiling, Tifa rubbed the back of her neck, a blush creeping across her cheeks. “He made a promise to save me if I was ever in trouble. And he keeps… keeping it.” 

She looked out at the squalid town around them. “During a mission with Avalanche, we had to jump from a moving train.” Yuffie’s eyes widened. “Cloud grabbed me and held me against him as we fell. Didn’t hurt at all. He has… soft arms for being so strong.” 

Aerith swallowed as she watched Tifa light up. 

“And then there was Don Corneo,” she continued. “Cloud turned Sector Six upside down to find a way in to save me.” She winked at Aerith. “Of course, he had some help with that one. Aerith’s a pretty good rescuer too.” 

On reflex, Aerith smiled back. But her heart sank into her stomach. 

“He’ll save us this time too,” Tifa finished happily. 

Yuffie swooned with a dramatic flourish. “Sounds like someone’s caught the love bug.”

Tifa blushed. “No comment...” 

FLASH

The Lifestream swept Aerith along like a leaf in whitewater rapids. She flailed, helpless. She manifested and demanifested her body over and over. A futile attempt to wrest control from the seething current. 

Dozens of small reactors infected the desert, and they trapped her between them. Those reactors sucked the Lifestream into massive vats. They worked with brutal efficiency, converting the souls of the dead into Mako. The once-stable tide of energy churned into a feverish torrent that battered her soul. 

Know when to float, and when to swim . 

Serenity…

Aerith centered herself and forced her body to appear. It jerked between the pull of several pumps, and she let them pull her along. She forced herself onto her back, her arms outstretched. 

Float. Recover. 

I’ll catch up to you and carry you until you catch your breath. All the way back to the shore if I need to…

But he wasn’t here. 

Float. Let the memories wash over her instead of seeking them out. Cloud. Tifa. Admissions. Confessions. 

It all seemed so trivial in light of…

FLASH

Barret dove for cover as Dyne emptied another clip in his direction. They had found the man with a gun for an arm- a left arm. 

Dyne was feral, howling at his onetime brother. Barret begged him to calm down. Pleaded for a chance to talk. 

Dyne didn’t talk. He was past talking. He seethed and surged like a man possessed. Rage burned in his eyes and fueled his attacks.

He fought like an animal, and he died like an animal. 

Shinra gunned him down in a desert scrapyard. Aerith remembered clasping her hands and praying for his spirit. May he find his Eleanor in the Lifestream . 

There was so much hate in his soul. So much confusion. He faded, and she lost him. The Lifestream was hostile here, stretched thin by the Saucer’s reactors. She never learned if Dyne made it to his wife.

FLASH

They were in Dio’s buggy. The desert was vast, and it took days to cross. Aerith sat in a rear seat and watched the landscape zoom by. A moment of quiet: they’d evaded Shinra. They didn’t see any monsters around either. 

Barret sat in the seat next to her. He hadn’t said much since the escape from the Turks’ ambush a few days before.

Aerith opened her pack and offered him her canteen. He stared at it, then glanced at her. 

“I should’ve stayed in Midgar,” he rasped. He waved the canteen away with his good hand. 

Aerith looked to the others. Cloud drove, with Tifa scanning a map in the passenger seat. Yuffie hunched with her head between her knees behind them. Cait sat on top of Nanaki, humming show tunes from one of the Saucer’s musicals. No one paid Barret or Aerith much attention.

“You can’t save the world in Midgar,” Aerith pointed out. 

He grunted. 

“We needed you. We still need you.” She stowed her canteen and took out a ration bar for him. 

Barret waved the food away too. “No you don’t. You might have needed another fighter, but it didn’t have to be me.” He gripped his dog tags. “I could’ve called in a favor at Avalanche. Sent a rifleman or two with you.”

“When the stakes are this high, could you really have trusted the journey to someone else?” Aerith gave him a gentle smile. 

“That’s exactly what I should have done.” His voice cracked. “What kind of father abandons his daughter?”

Aerith paused. Oh .

“You say I can’t save the world in Midgar, but she is my world. And I ran away from her.” 

He turned to Aerith and took his sunglasses off. His eyes were red and puffy. 

“I’m a machine, remember? And my fuel was rage.” He barked a laugh. Yuffie’s head shot up, but Aerith caught her eye and shook her head. “Guess we see how that story ends now,” he said ruefully.

“You aren’t Dyne, Barret.” 

“You’re telling me I’m not a gun-handed freak that ran away from his home and family to go kill anyone I didn’t like?” 

Aerith swallowed. 

“I saw my future, Aerith. When I held Dyne for the last time.” He trembled and crossed his arms. “I saw what I’d become if I stopped letting love fuel me.”

“The advice I gave you that night?” he asked. “Bullshit. The kind of fuel rage gives you is like Mako. It’s putrid. Corrupts you. It’s got to be love that moves you.” 

He looked down at his locket. “And I ran from it. Because I was afraid of what would happen to me if I lost her. Without someone to come back to when this is all over…” 

He trailed off. 

Aerith watched Barret caress the picture. She glanced at the front of the buggy and saw Cloud and Tifa chatter about the route ahead. 

“You need someone to get back to,” she breathed. “Someone to love on the other side of all this.” 

He nodded. “I couldn’t stay with Marlene. Not with all that hate in my heart. I’d have driven her away. So I ran.” 

“And now?”

“I’m not healed. But I can get on the road to healing. And I can be the father to her that she needs.”

He put his sunglasses back on. “If you don’t have someone on the other side of all this, you’re nothing,” he said softly. 

Aerith watched Cloud as he rounded a bend in the desert road. He glanced up at her from the rearview mirror. She smiled, and he blushed before looking away. 

He needs something on the other side of this . 

And I’m not going to be there .

In the passenger seat, Tifa folded the map and put it away. She pointed to their next landmark, patting Cloud excitedly on the back. 

But someone else can be .

FLASH

The currents of the Lifestream twisted Aerith’s spirit around the Corel desert. Fragments of memory slammed into her, but she couldn’t get them to cohere like in other regions. The reactors took too much, too fast.

I’ll catch up to you and carry you until you catch your breath. All the way back to the shore if I need to…

He still wasn’t here, though.

She remembered thinking about her death. Barret’s words followed her from Corel into Gongaga and beyond. 

He needs someone to get back to .

And then Tifa’s voice joined in. 

I, um… love him…

She had to get her bearings.

Didn’t I learn how to fight for myself?  

She remembered staring at the reactor under Junon. She remembered the lessons learned against the Mindflayer. How to stand up for herself. How to stand strong.

She gritted her teeth and spread her fingers. She forced her staff to materialize, breathing stability into the rod. Then she forced a ward out of it- a bulwark against the surging Mako. 

The ward flickered and died. There were too many reactors. Too much uncertainty. 

Why fight? She thought. Why not give in? 

It would be so easy to drift too close to one of the reactors. To leave the heartache behind.

He needs someone on the other side of this . 

It couldn’t be Aerith. Not if she was going to die. 

Memories flitted back to her. She remembered making a decision, there in the Skywheel. Float, or swim? 

Fight, or stand aside? 

What did I decide to do?  

Tifa could grant Cloud peace. She could be the person waiting at the other side of all this. 

On the beach, Aerith had told Yuffie she’d sacrifice her life for her friends. For the Planet. 

Would she have sacrificed her heart too?

Was keeping her distance the best way to keep him safe? 

FLASH

She was back on the Skywheel. The patchy part that her memory had glossed over before. 

Tifa and Aerith sat side by side in their own gondola. 

Tifa’s words echoed in the little room.

If I lose him…I lose myself. I lose my way back. To the person I’d hoped I could be again…

Her spirit was decoupled from her memory again. She drifted outside her past self’s gondola.

Aerith watched her past self stare at the floor as their ride began its descent back down. 

“I want him to be safe too,” the past Aerith whispered. The Mako poisoning, the lost identities.

Cloud was broken. Someone needed to fix him.

Tifa looked out the other window. “I know you do.” She rested her forehead on the glass. “I know that you care for him. I see how you two look at each other. The way you talk when you think no one’s watching.” 

Aerith’s head snapped up. She felt her skin flush and grow clammy.

“I’ve never had a friend like you before,” Tifa said. “And I don’t want… um, Business to come between us.” 

She sighed. “But I know the way he talks to me too. The way he acts when it’s just us.”

Tifa turned to Aerith, a silent plea in her eyes. I need you to see it too. I need someone else to know it’s real.

Aerith thought about Cloud huddled on the deck of Shinra-8. He was so small. So afraid. He needed someone to be there for him. For the rest of his life.

FLASH

Back in the Lifestream, Aerith spun through Corel. She couldn’t hear the chorus of the Cetra. She couldn’t sense Ifalna. She couldn’t see the future, or talk to her past self. The reactors yanked on her soul, and she felt herself grow thin. 

She was so tired of fighting.

FLASH

The skywheel. Memories of Cloud on the hike with her. Comforting her. Giving her strength, even when he had none to give. 

He deserves to be happy . 

Whatever happens, you can’t fall in love with me …

She had tried to save him from hurting. 

Is this how it’s supposed to be?  

Someone to love on the other side of this , Barret had said. 

“I can’t be that for him,” Aerith whispered. 

Tifa frowned. “You can’t be what?”

FLASH

Aerith clawed her way through the rarefied currents of the Lifestream. She pulled herself upward and forced herself into the memory. There wasn’t enough of the Planet’s energy to float.

She clung to the side of her past self’s gondola and felt her soul ache as her heart broke into a thousand tiny pieces. 

FLASH

Blinking back tears, Aerith took Tifa’s hands in her own. She couldn’t stop her voice from trembling. It’s for the best . 

“It’s not like that. Honest, it’s not,” Aerith said. 

Tifa stared back incredulously. 

“Cloud means a lot to me. But he’s just a really good friend!” The lie tasted like sulfur in her mouth. 

He has to get through this . “He deserves to be with someone that can make him happy.”

She felt the blood pounding in her ears. “You’ll find a way to get him through the Mako poisoning, won’t you?” You can save him. You can keep him safe when I’m gone . 

Tifa studied Aerith’s face. She had to see the tears unspilled. She had to hear the words unsaid. 

“Aerith, what aren’t you telling me?”

She took a deep breath in. “I… just want him to be happy. And I think… that…”

A score of White Whispers appeared and flitted around the gondola cart. Aerith watched them as they called to her.

White Whispers? Here? What were they doing? They were miles from the broken reactor. 

Do it.

Aerith couldn’t tell if the command came from her own thoughts or the Whispers. 

She thought about fighting for Cloud. Of confessing her feelings for him to Tifa. The Whispers thrummed. No. It is not your place.

Guidance from fate? From the Planet? 

He will not survive with you. He might survive with her. 

Tifa took Aerith’s hands, compassion welling in her eyes. She saw the battle playing out on Aerith’s face.

Aerith saw the Whispers of fate out the window. In a split second, she understood her role in their quest. It wasn’t enough for her to save the world if Cloud languished in it. He had to survive too. 

Grant him the gift of hope. With you, he shall know only despair .

This was for the best. It had to be for the best.

“I think that he’d be happiest with you, Tifa.”

The Whispers bowed, and faded into the Lifestream.

FLASH

From the Lifestream, Aerith fell back from the gondola window, less than a ghost. She let the currents grab her and shake her like wreckage in a tornado. She was done fighting. Around her, the white Whispers that spurred on her past self swirled.

She felt the edges of her soul fray and come apart as she came closer to one of the desert reactors. What had she been fighting for all this time, through all these memories, if not for a second chance with him?

The tugging on her spirit intensified. She was so tired of fighting. She didn’t have the strength to resist any more. She couldn’t commune with her past self. She didn’t have any better insight into how to fight Sephiroth from the Lifestream. 

She knew time was running out. She had revisited over half of her journey out of Midgar with nothing to show for it. Not even a hint of how to save herself, or stop Sephiroth. 

The despair had caught up to her. There was no resisting it here. 

Then why did her spirit suddenly feel stronger?

YOUNG DAUGHTER. YOU STRAY FROM YOUR PATH.

That voice. Just like the one in Mount Corel’s broken reactor. 

Something else tugged her away from the Saucer’s machinery. 

YOU YET HAVE A PART TO PLAY. 

“Who… is this…?”

YOU MUST COME, WHERE THE LINE BETWEEN OUR WORLD AND THEIRS THINS.

“Back… back at Mount Corel?” Aerith could hardly stay conscious. 

THERE IS ANOTHER MAKO POOL. IT DEMANDS YOUR ATTENDANCE.

“I’m so tired.”

THEN WE WILL CONVEY YOU. THIS ONCE. CONSIDER IT A FAVOR REPAID.

A favor… repaid? To whom? When?

SEE HOW YOU KEPT US SAFE. WE WERE IN YOUR DEBT.

A swirl of white Whispers enveloped her, carrying her away from the desert around the Saucer. Aerith saw her life path continue on within Dio’s buggy. As it headed south, the normal flow of the Lifestream returned. 

YOUNG DAUGHTER. WE AWAIT YOUR ACTIONS. 

The Whispers deposited her aching soul at the southern edge of the desert. She manifested her body and gazed at the verdant lands beyond. They coursed with emerald light. An ancient land. Ruins her people had left behind. The homeland of a man she once loved. 

THE WEAPON OF GONGAGA CALLS TO YOU.

Chapter Text

Chapter 13: No path ahead

The Lifestream

Voices whirling. One deep and profound. One soft and kind. One fractured and reeling.

…CLEARED… DESERT…

“...up, Petal…”

So… lost.

Aerith remembered a dress she owned back in Midgar. A blue and white thing she loved wearing in the slums. The harsh lights from the Plate’s sunlamps had faded the dress’s colors. Mud from the churchward road always stained the hem. Elmyra took care to wash it, but each wash frayed the cheap fabric. 

After years of hard wear, the dress had become a washed out, tattered thing. The fibers were threadbare, and the colors were a pale, stained shadow of what they once were. 

Adrift in the Lifestream, Aerith felt like her old dress. Once she had been vibrant, but now she felt… thin. Stretched. 

…NO REACTORS…

“...Petal… safe…”

Revisiting the Gold Saucer had been a mistake. The reactors were too strong, and nature was too depleted to support a Lifestream spirit. She still couldn’t remember everything that happened, nor the order that it happened in.

She remembered wanting to explore with Cloud, only to find out he had gone to bed early. But she had toured the pavilions with him. 

The play… The song... The Skywheel…

Hazy memories. But she hadn’t seen any of that. 

Because we went back , she realized in a flash. 

The betrayal…  

She had left the Saucer. Before any of that happened. 

Dyne… the prison…

Yes, that had happened. 

The colosseum… Tifa… the confession…

So had that, she realized glumly. 

“... Aerith Faremis! You wake up right now!”

She bolted upright, manifesting her body in a heartbeat. That got her attention. No one had used her old name to scold her in years. 

Ifalna loomed over her. While there wasn’t an “up” or “down” in the Lifestream, her mother leaned over her like Aerith was in a bed. 

She opened her eyes in slow blinks, letting the light of the Lifestream bathe her in green. The current was slow here. Gentle. The churning reactors were long gone, and Aerith could feel the power of nature on the other side of the veil. 

Ifalna’s face split into a grin. She looked stronger than she had in a while as she threw her arms around Aerith. 

“Sorry for being a scold, Petal. I wasn’t sure how else to get you to come to your senses. And letting him wake you up seemed even harsher.” 

YOU ARE AWAITED, ANCIENT DAUGHTER.

“Another…Weapon?” Aerith shook her head, trying to dispel the lingering confusion fogging her mind. 

“Another ruined reactor,” Ifalna confirmed. “Mako coalesces at the edge of the jungle.”

“The jungle?” Aerith reached out with her senses. The dreadful deserts of Corel howled to the north of her. But here…

“The jungles of Gongaga.” Ifalna spoke the word fondly. With reverence. “Nature is strong here. Our people long regarded this place as a cornerstone of civilization. It was a place where the cycle of life and death was, perhaps, at its strongest.” 

Aerith bore witness to the jungle, nodding as her memories untangled. Enormous trees reached for the sun, protecting smaller plants and animals below.

Mushrooms dotted the jungle too. A vast network of spores fed on the dead before they could rot and become foul. The mushrooms fed the local animals, who thrived under the trees' shade.

Life and death. Trees and mushrooms. A full circle, made manifest.

“Shinra sought to exploit the vitality here,” Ifalna observed. “But their reach exceeded their grasp. They couldn’t staff the reactor, nor deliver parts in time. It fell into disrepair.”

“We went there,” Aerith recalled. 

YOU DID INDEED.

The Weapon’s voice called to her from across the jungle. That same voice had pulled her from Corel before she lost herself completely. 

“But not at first,” she continued. Ifalna shook her head in agreement. 

“In fact,” Aerith continued, “it was hard to get through Gongaga. We kept getting lost…”

The Jungles of Gongaga

“...I’m tellin’ ye, there’s a path just up ahead!” 

Aerith was getting better at deciphering Cait Sith’s brogue. She felt like the only one sometimes. The party didn't trust him, but she tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Their newest traveling companion had fled Corel with the rest of them. He'd insisted he knew of a village in the heart of the jungle. The dense trees had forced them to ditch the buggy that got them through the desert, so they rucked on foot.

The air was muggy and smelled of moss, which sprung underfoot. Water streamed in rivulets around them, and bright sunlight streamed through thick branches.

“You’ve been saying there’s a path up ahead for two hours now,” moaned Yuffie. “Can you admit we’re lost and we can make camp for the night?”

The sun had started to dip below the treeline. Aerith shivered as she remembered the Zu ambush during her last nighttime hike. Camping sounded great. 

Aerith reached into her pack to pull out ready-to-eat meals. “I spent all my GP points on better rations too! We won’t have to hunt tonight!” 

Tifa beamed next to her. “That was a good idea! I spent all mine on sunscreen and bug spray. We went through the last of our first batch in Costa.”

She turned to look at Cloud, who brought up the rear. “Hey Cloud, remind us what you spent all your points on?”

Cloud reddened and looked to the side. He mumbled something Aerith didn’t catch it. 

Tifa brought her hand to her ear and cocked her head. “What was that? I couldn’t quite hear you.” 

“....Queen’s Blood cards,” he said in a small voice. 

Tifa winked at Aerith as she set her pack down. It seemed the current clearing would work as a campsite. 

“So while Aerith feeds us and I make sure we don’t burn in the sun, you can challenge any monsters around here to a duel. We can keep our weapons nice and clean!” 

Cloud frowned and dropped his pack too. “I can, uh… do all the cooking and cleaning tonight. And break camp in the morning.” 

Barret took out the tent and handed it to Yuffie, who immediately got to work. “I’m not gonna say no to an easy night,” he rumbled. “Real big of ya, Spikey.” 

He grunted and started making a fire. Barret had gotten a lot quicker with kind words since coming out the other side of Corel. He’d confessed that he still hurt to Aerith, but it seemed like he'd gotten better at setting down his dark thoughts.

Aerith wished she could do the same. 

She watched Cloud take out the rations and set them over the fire. The kits from the Gold Saucer were some kind of curry, and the aroma made Aerith’s mouth water. 

Cloud had become a fastidious chef when it was his turn to cook. He’d triple check the camp stove, mind the fire, and season each serving to everyone’s individual tastes. No one ever commented, or seemed to notice, how much more deliberate Cloud's cooking was. 

She smiled to herself as she watched him work. Without the sword on his back he looked so… normal. Some guy making dinner. 

Normal people moments. No Cetra or SOLDIERs. Like the hike. 

Moments she couldn’t give herself anymore. She thought back to the night of the Skywheel with Tifa. The White Whispers that encouraged her to step away from him.

Across the campsite, she saw Tifa pretending to review her folio. She peeked over the top of the book to watch Cloud work. He glanced up at her and she blushed, her eyes darting back to the pages. 

They’ll be happier together , she insisted to herself. Earlier in their journey, she had allowed herself to hope that she could avert fate. That she could have a happy ending with Cloud. 

The more she saw her future self’s spirit, the less confident she became that she could avert that fate. Her mother’s materia hadn’t grown any brighter, and the voices of the Planet hadn’t given her any more answers. 

She’d need to tell him that their tryst in the mountains couldn’t repeat. She would let him down gently, and give Tifa the space to declare her feelings for him. 

“Soup’s on,” Cloud announced. He handed everyone their own plate, prepared to their liking. 

Barret’s was always spicy. Nanaki’s always had a little extra char on it. Yuffie’s never had any vegetables. Cloud handed Tifa her dinner, which had Yuffie's vegetables. Then, he settled on a log next to Aerith with their food. 

He handed her a plate with the curry sauce in a separate bowl. Once, she’d mentioned that she didn’t like mixing everything all together. He’d wordlessly adjusted every one of her meals since. As he set his own meal in his lap, Aerith saw Tifa’s face fall as she sat alone on the other side of the fire. 

Yuffie waved Cait over to join them. “You want me to get you, like, a battery to lick or something?” Nanaki chuckled, almost forgetting to deepen his voice. 

Cait hopped next to Tifa and joined her on her log. “I dinnae need a battery, but the company is nice,” he said as he sat on his haunches. “Hope ye don’t mind that it’s takin’ a little longer to find a way through the fen.” 

“We don’t have an urgent deadline for now,” Aerith said. “And to be honest it’s nice to be around plants again. I don’t mind taking a little longer to get through this.” 

Cait gave her a thankful smile. “I promise I’ll be a better pathfinder tomorrow.” He rapped the side of his head. “Gotta stir up the old databanks.” 

They ate the rest of dinner and chatted about nothing in particular. As they finished, Tifa stood up and handed her empty dish to Cloud. “I’m gonna turn in early. Got a little bit of a sprain I want to sleep off.” 

Aerith gave her a sympathetic look and stood up next. “I’ve got first watch. Red, do you want to set the wards for the night?” He nodded and began casting the defensive spells around the perimeter of camp. Then he padded off to bed too. 

Barret went next, and Yuffie went a few minutes later after tinkering with her Fort Condor board. Cloud cleaned up dinner in silence as Aerith leaned against a tree. She checked her bracelets and staff, then started listening to the sounds of the jungle. 

“Hey.” 

Cloud ambled next to her, two steaming mugs in his hand. “Made you some tea. It’s the last of the stuff we picked up in Costa.” She could see his smile in the camp’s firelight. 

God, she loved that smile. It was so subtle most people wouldn’t even notice it. A little upturn at the corner, a little crinkle around his eyes. Cloud was a collage of subtle, imperceptible movements. The more she got to know him, the more she loved being able to decode those little signs. 

They’d been traveling for months now. Aerith realized that she wouldn’t get to decode much more of him, in light of her decision to stay away. How many moments had they spent together? Little walks, odd jobs, times at camp…

Hold onto them , she told herself. But let him have something to look forward to. She couldn’t leave him chained to a memory. 

He raised a mug to her and she took it. “Been a few days since we’ve been able to hang out,” he said. “I kinda thought it’d be fun to go around the Saucer together. But after those fumes…” 

She thought of their hike down to Corel’s ruined reactor. The almost-kiss. The Mako fumes washing over him. 

“I’m glad you got to catch up on sleep,” Aerith reassured him. “You push yourself too hard sometimes.” 

He nodded. “I'm pretty caught up now. Was wondering if you wanted some company on watch.” 

He cleared his throat. He looked down into his mug, and he rubbed a foot in the dirt. 

“Was, uh, wondering if we could be normal people for a few hours.” He glanced up at her, his blue eyes glowing in the night. His smile deepened. “Just until your shift is over?”

Aerith still got butterflies in her stomach when he looked at her like that. But this time, she felt claws of ice around her heart too. She couldn’t lead him on. She owed it to Tifa. And to Cloud. Whatever she thought she might share with him was gone- taken by her fate. 

She couldn’t meet his eyes. She looked into the darkness beyond the camp, huddling around her mug. 

“I think I have to be a Cetra tonight,” she rasped. She saw his shoulders slump out of the corner of her eye.

He seemed to deflate, standing next to her on the rim of the campsite. 

“Did I… do something wrong on the hike?” he asked quietly. “Or at the Saucer?”

She wanted to toss her mug to the side and throw his arms around him. Of course you didn’t do anything wrong . She wanted to hold his hand and pretend to be normal. She wanted to sip her tea and ask him about the Queen’s Blood cards he’d picked up. She wanted to plan what they’d do together if they could ever go back to the Saucer together. 

But she couldn’t. Her past self had been right in Midgar. He couldn’t fall in love with her and she was stupid for thinking otherwise. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Cloud.” Her voice sounded flat in her own ears. Dead. 

“But Gongaga is a lot more alive than the desert was.” She formed her lie on the fly. Something reasonable sounding. “I’m… hearing the Planet down here. I was hoping to tune into it. Maybe see if I could get some wisdom from the Lifestream.”

She smiled at him. “I don’t think I can afford to be normal right now.” 

He swallowed, but nodded. “I can take watch then. If you want to concentrate.” 

She took his hand. There’s so much I want to say to you . “Could you do me a favor, actually?” 

“Anything.” 

She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a green orb of Materia. More Cure magic that she’d been refining. 

“Could you take this and check on Tifa for me tonight? She said she had a bad sprain. She may need someone to help her out.” 

He took the materia without a word and stared at it. Aerith leaned over to catch his eye. “Tifa really needs someone to watch out for her. You understand?”

He glanced at her before turning back to the tent. His jaw tightened and his voice trembled. “I understand.” 

“Thank you, Cloud.” 

She turned to look out at the forest as she heard Cloud march back to the tent. She didn’t look back for the rest of her shift. 

***

Barret muscled his way between Aerith and Yuffie as they walked through the jungle. They’d struck camp early and continued to tromp through the wilderness. Cait Sith, leading the group, insisted they were close to a settlement.

“Hey. You know what I think?” 

His voice sounded like bees trapped in a motorcycle engine. Barret was not good at whispering. 

He kept his voice low and glanced to the front of the group.

“I didn’t know you could think,” Yuffie whispered back to him. 

Aerith reached behind Barret’s back and cuffed Yuffie on the head. “Be nice.”

“I think,” Barret continued, “that there is no village in this damn swamp. I think Mister Employee of the Month is leading us into a Shinra trap.” 

Yuffie scowled. “That doesn’t make any sense. There were hella Shinra people back at the Saucer. And in the desert.” She plucked a piece of fruit from a nearby tree and examined it as she walked. “Why wouldn’t he have sold us out back then?” 

Barret tapped the side of his head. “Corporate politics. Robocat didn’t want to sell us out to Palmer or the Turks. He’s working for another division. Guarantee it.” 

Aerith watched Cait climb a tree for a better vantage point, only to fall into a puddle of mud below. “I dunno, Barret. He doesn’t seem all that cunning.” 

“That’s how they getcha.” Barret put his sunglasses on and checked his prosthetic. “All I’m saying is be ready for an ambush.” He marched onward, leaving Aerith and Yuffie behind. 

Yuffie tossed the fruit aside and pulled out her shuriken. “Shit. Now he’s got me nervous.” 

Aerith rested her hand on Yuffie’s weapon. “Don’t be. If we can’t trust each other, what chance do we have against Shinra?” 

“Hmm.” Yuffie squinted as she peered into the jungle. “So you trust him?”

“As much as I trust you!” Aerith smiled.

“...Is that a lot?” Yuffie cocked an eyebrow. 

“It’d be more if you gave me another meditation lesson.” Aerith offered a violet orb of materia in payment.

Yuffie snatched it before Aerith finished her sentence. 

“No takebacks. We can do it the next time we make camp.” 

“Deal.” 

The two walked in silence. Nanaki brought up the rear of the column, while Cloud and Tifa walked right behind Cait. Barret had tried to catch up to them, but Tifa shooed him off. He walked by himself, kicking rocks at his feet. 

Aerith felt sick watching Tifa and Cloud walk together. He glanced back at her a few times, and she shot him a smile. For her part, Tifa talked excitedly at him, pointing out plants or animals along their walk. 

It’s better this way. Better for us all. No attachments. Nothing to break if the worst should happen. And if the worst doesn’t happen…

She’d swoop in and declare her love to him? 

No. But another ‘business’ talk might be in order with Tifa.

“Aha!”

Cait Sith’s squeaky brogue snapped Aerith out of her reverie. 

“A path! As predicted!”

Nanaki bounded ahead. “A path to a village?”

“Well… a path, in any case.” Cait summoned his Moogle and hopped down a patchy stone road, worn by time and the elements. 

“This doesn’t seem very well maintained…” Tifa observed. “Would a modern village make a road out of old rocks?”

Aerith made her way onto the path and studied the white stones. They felt oddly familiar. She could sense a presence from them, calling to her. She wandered ahead of the group, casting her senses out. 

“Lotta flowers growing all of a sudden.” Cloud had stopped walking to examine the wildflowers blooming along the side of the path. He noticed flowers more and more as their journey went on.

Giant red lilies, orange heliconias, even purple orchids exploded out of the ground. 

They filled in gaps in the old stone path and climbed nearby trees. As they walked, more flowers bloomed around them, as if responding to the group’s presence.

“Getting a ping from Chadley,” Cloud continued. “He says lots of intel around here.”

“Ask him if there’s a village nearby!” Yuffie poked at a poinsettia with her shuriken. 

“No village,” Cloud said. “Just intel. Lifesprings. Summon shrines. The usual."

“So. Not a Shinra trap either.” Aerith fixed Barret with a stare. He huffed. 

She continued down the path. “I think… we might have built this place.” She reached out with her thoughts, feeling the Lifestream course under her feet. Voices- harmonious, singing voices, flitted at the edge of her conscious mind. “There’s a Cetra presence here.” 

“Probably related to the big Cetra building dead ahead,” Nanaki deadpanned. He pointed with his nose at a half-overgrown structure blended into the plants. It had the unmistakable trappings of pre-Republic architecture.

Aerith snorted. “Oh. Yeah, that’s a good clue.”

Cloud pulled out Chadley’s computer again. “Target rich environment here. We’ve got springs, shrines, and monsters to hunt.” He glanced at Aerith. “Divide and conquer? We could check out the shrine together.” 

His voice sounded hopeful. He’d given her space after last night, but the question behind his question was clear. He wanted time with her.

“I think I need to stay here,” Aerith said. She struggled to keep the melancholy out of her voice. “I’m gonna try to commune with this place.” 

“Like the reactor?” Cloud stepped toward her protectively before catching himself. He glanced at the others. “You’ll, uh, need someone to make sure you don’t fall over.” 

“I can do it!” Cait squeaked. He rolled over to Aerith. “Been meanin’ to talk to this one anyway.” He beamed at Aerith, his tiny hands on his hips.

Tifa bounded over to Cloud “We could go to the summon shrine though.” She reached for his hand. “Could be nice to go for a walk.”

Cloud looked at Tifa, then at Aerith. She gave him a small smile and a nod. Inside, her stomach felt like it was full of broken glass.

“Uh, sure,” he said. “That leaves Yuffie, Red, and Barret on monster hunting duty.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Yuffie shot off down another path. 

“Wait, what about my lesson?” Aerith cried. 

Barret hustled in the same direction as Yuffie. “She’s going the wrong way anyway. I’ll catch her and deal with the fiends. And then I’ll make sure she pays up tonight.” Nanaki followed Barret, glancing back at Aerith to smile. 

Cloud set off another way, heading for the shrine. Tifa turned to Aerith, the gratitude plain in her eyes. Thank you , she mouthed, before tailing Cloud out of the ruins.

***

“How about now? Anything… mystical yet?”

Breathe. Serenity.

“Oh! I think I felt something! Was that you? Did ya make contact?”

In… and out.

In… and out.

“Would music help? I’ve got playlists and ambiance somewhere in here…”

Aerith’s concentration shattered with a crack and a poof. She opened an eye and saw Cait shifting through his Moogle’s stomach, tossing speakers and CDs aside. 

She stood, shaking her head in frustration. Nothing had responded to her mental probing. The faint Chorus of Cetra voices remained out of reach. She hadn’t sensed her future self- either one- since Mount Corel. 

She thought, not for the first time, that she’d wasted her only chance to contact herself at the ruined reactor. She had thought she heard a call to Gongaga in the desert. For a brief instant she had a vision of another broken reactor- and another Weapon- deep in the jungle. 

That could be wishful thinking. 

“Y’know, I might have a cushion or two as well. Could make sitting a bit easier than old stone.”

Aerith turned to the little robot. 

“Cait. I’m okay. I promise.” Someone else might have found his ministrations annoying. Aerith wasn't someone else though- she could sense his earnestness. He wanted to prove himself- to show that he wasn’t a Shinra asset or a spy. 

Aerith had a knack for understanding what people wanted. Barret needed someone to listen to him. Nanaki needed peace. Tifa needed a sister, and Cloud needed... something she couldn't give him. Don't think about it. Don't think about him.

Cait Sith needed acceptance. 

He needed trust. And nothing made Aerith happier than giving a new friend something they needed.

It was strange. Cait Sith was unequivocally a robot. But sometimes, Aerith sometimes sensed… something else on him. An unfamiliar kind of magic. A hint of humanity. There was more to the fortuneteller than he let on. She figured he’d disclose himself in due time, like Barret had. Or like Nanaki would. 

But above all else, Aerith sensed a… goodness in Cait Sith. There was a soul in there that ached to do the right thing.

“So you’re the last Ancient.” Cait rolled over to her and sat cross legged alongside her. 

“Cetra,” Aerith corrected. “'Ancient' is the word humans used for us.” She slumped. “Besides, I’m only half Cetra.”

“Half of anything is still better than a whole human,” Cait Sith said. “Take it from me.”

Aerith let a small smile slip. “And you would know because…”

“Because I’m half cat, half robot, half human, and half fortune teller!” He leaned toward her with a stage whisper. “The more halves you have , the less you have to have to be great!”

Aerith tried to parse Cait’s nonsense, but stopped before her headache got any worse. 

“Damn. That normally gets a chuckle.” 

“Sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind.” 

“Seems like. You were a wee bit out of it in the desert. And ya seem a bit preoccupied now.” 

“There’s something here. I can feel it,” she said. “And I don’t know enough about being a Cetra to do anything about it. I’ve been trying to meditate more- so I can connect to the Lifestream.”

“And why would ya want to do that?”

“Because something terrible is going to happen.” Aerith shivered. “Maybe a lot of terrible things. And if there’s something that I can do to stop it- or even make it hurt less- I want to do it.” 

She slowed her breathing again, casting out her senses. 

“Sounds like ya know more about the future than you let on.” Cait bounded on top of his Moogle. “Wanna talk shop? Future-seer to future-seer?” 

Aerith cracked an eye at him. “Can you really see the future?” 

Cait shrugged. “Well, ‘see’ might be a stretch. But I can print it!” He cartwheeled in place, slapping the top of his Moogle’s head.

It whirred and clicked, then spat out a small pick of paper. Aerith stared at it, and Cait motioned for her to pick it up.

She turned the paper- a cardboard ticket- over in her hand. In cramped, neat letters, it read:

“Old Love lost? New Love found! 

Old Love’s origins here abound!

”Under roof, under ‘shroom:

Chat nearby your rented room!”

Aerith read it two more times and then stared at Cait Sith. “This doesn’t mean anything to me. And it doesn’t prove you can see- or print- the future.”

“Ah, ye of little faith. How about this then?” Cait flipped around again, slapping the stuffed Moogle mount twice. 

It whirred, clicked, and then spat out a second ticket. She picked it up. 

“Watch out! 

Cait Sith’s about to clap his hands six times in a row!”

She looked up as Cait Sith hopped onto the ground and clapped his hands. One-two-three in quick succession, then another one-two-three. 

“Very funny.” 

“And yet, yer not laughing!”

“Cait, not that this isn’t fun, but can I get back to my meditation?”

The little robot’s face fell. “I’m sorry, Aerith. I dinnae mean to bother you.” 

He began picking up the music, cushions, and party favors that he’d pulled out of the Moogle. His shoulders slumped and his feet dragged on the ground. 

“I can make sure no one disturbs ya. Believe it or not, I know that sometimes ya just need to shut yer office door and get to work.”

Aerith felt a pang of guilt. She hadn’t meant to snap at Cait Sith. She never would have been so brusque with another member of the party. 

You don’t think of him as a person , she chided herself. But he was “alive.” Aerith sensed a soul on him. That didn’t happen with other mechs or machines. 

Aerith reached for the Lifestream again. She felt the souls of plants and animals around her. But no future self. No long-lost Cetra guardian like she’d hoped for. 

She shivered as her senses brushed against Cait’s spirit. It extended beyond his body, and it disappeared into the Lifestream. 

That’s odd . 

His spirit radiated off of his tiny body like an aura. But after a few yards, the aura coalesced. It braided itself into some kind of line, which spanned for miles to the east. A tether, or a lifeline, connected the cat to something beyond the horizon.

“You’re not really here, are you?” Aerith turned to look at Cait. 

He swallowed. “I dinnae know what you’re talking about. I’m just me, remember?”

Aerith searched through the haze of her memories in the desert. Barret had poked and prodded at Cait for hours before confirming that he wasn’t a drone. There weren’t any radio signals or data streams coming into or off of him. 

But this wasn’t technology. It was magic. 

“Half cat, half robot, half human, half fortuneteller, right?” Aerith peered at him. “None of us ever thought you were human.” 

“Ah. That. Er, just a wee glitch.No human here!” He beat against the side of his head. 

Aerith sighed. She had known Nanaki was a friend back in Midgar. She still had her knowledge of the future. She wished she could do the same here. She wanted to trust Cait Sith. She sensed… goodness coming off of him. But she didn’t know how his story would end. Or who was on the other end of that spirit line. 

“I want to trust you, Cait. But you’re not giving me a lot to work with here.” 

Cait Sith sighed. “I cannae tell you much. I’m not allowed. But if I give you something, and you promise to keep it between us, will you trust me? At least enough to keep me around?” 

Aerith nodded slowly. 

“Truth is, I am gonna betray you. At least, it’s gonna look like I am. I know that much of the future. But it’s gonna be for yer own good. And then… I’m gonna die to protect you.”

Aerith’s blood ran cold. 

“This soul-” Cait gestured at himself- “has an expiration date. But if you can see what I think you can see, then that one-” he thumbed the tether that spanned from his soul to the east- “will be fine. And he’ll find another way to help ye.” 

Cait sighed. “He just wants to help. I just want to help. Even if I have to die to do it.” 

Empathy welled up in Aerith.

 “I’m sorry I doubted you.” She sensed the authenticity in his words. There wasn’t a duplicitous aura to the soul she saw. Just a scared man trying to do his best. “And I’m sorry I snapped at you.” 

She rubbed the top of Cait’s head. He smiled and looked up at her with his beady eyes. 

“My magic’s not like your magic. But sometimes it can do some wild stuff,” he said. “Including see the future!”

“You don’t have to impress me, Cait.” Aerith smiled and stretched her mind out. She began to commune with the Lifestream again. 

“Ah, but somethin’ feels different this time! This one’ll be a doozy!”

From behind his Moogle, Cait danced a little jig and slapped the back of its head. Aerith felt the Lifestream stir. Something different was happening this time.

For a third time, the Moogle whirred and clicked before spitting out a blank ticket. This one was larger than the first two, and it floated to the ground with more... gravity than the others. 

Intrigued, Aerith picked it up. It was blank on both sides. She sighed, ready to admonish Cait, when a narrow band of emerald fire burst from the card.

The eyes on Cait’s moogle glowed green, and it buzzed, jerking too and fro. Energy surrounded it, and it vanished with a pop .

“Huh. That’s new.” Cait swayed over to Aerith.

The card’s fire burned enough to hurt her eyes, even in the daylight. The Lifestream flashed through Aerith, then flowed into the card. 

Elegant, flowing words formed on the page: 

“Fate needs an arbiter. An arbiter needs friends. 

Seek them in the ruined place where ancient jungle ends. ” 

“What in Gaia is that ?” Cait leered at the card. “Turn it over! It’s still going!”

Aerith breathlessly flipped the ticket. 

“Fate unbound, yet fortune writ

When present and the future split:

A moment comes to save a soul

And in so doing makes another whole.”

The fire leapt from the card and continued scrawling on the ancient Cetra stones. 

“A fetid pit, a fractured mind, beloved one enslaved.

Seek to intervene: ensure a different one is saved.

For when future becomes present, further future must be guided:

One must live, another dies, lest the world’s end be decided.”

“What do ya think it says?” Cait peered over Aerith’s shoulder in amazement. 

“What do you mean? It says in plain words-” 

The fire, and the letters it formed, vanished in a puff. Aerith held a blank card, which crumbled in her fingers into dust. 

“There was nothing plain about that, lass. Are you telling me you could read that gish?”

“Well, yeah. Could you not?”

“The writing was nae in any language I’ve seen. Looked more like swirls than letters.”

Aerith drew her staff and summoned a simple ward at her feet. It grew outward, covering the forest floor in sigils and runes. “Did it look like this?”

Cait nodded in awe. “Runes of power?”

Aerith hummed. “Yeah. These act like instructions. They help magic flow from the Lifestream into our plane.”

“What did the fortune say?” Cait tilted his head forward in excitement.

“Something about fate. And friends. We should…”

Behind Cait, a single Whisper, garbed in white, appeared. It hovered ominously. 

“And…?” Cait leaned onto his forepaws. 

“And that we should… keep looking for the village you mentioned?”

The Whisper nodded once, then vanished.

“Aha! I knew there was a village around here.” Cait crowed in triumph.

“But lass, come to think of it, I have seen those letters. In fact, they looked like…”

He darted across the ruined stone floor to a still-standing wall in the ruins. He pointed to a whirling line of interconnected runes. “They looked like this.”

Aerith studied the wall. “Cetra runes. My mom always said people with Cetra blood could read them naturally.”

Cait Sith whistled. “Hell of an encryption protocol. They look like loops to me.” 

She pulled a creeping vine from the wall to see more of the carving. A lot of it had faded, a victim of erosion and time. As her eyes pulled into focus, the meaning of the words snapped into focus. “Shadowblood Queen.” Something about an “Emerald Witch.” References to the Lifestream, and a spirit called “K’jata.” 

“This part looks like a signpost,” Aerith pointed out. “It mentions a well and a shelter from rain to the west.”

“Could be a good place to build a village,” Cait observed.

“Could be,” she agreed. 

“Well, nothin’ to do but wait for the others to come back! Then we’re eastbound and down!”

Aerith went back to where she’d tried to meditate, picking up the two fortunes that hadn’t crumbled. 

“You should hold onto those,” Cait advised. “Collectors go wild for Gold Saucer souvenirs."

Aerith glanced at the first fortune again. “Old Love Lost…?” Who did she love that was old? Elmyra? Ifalna? But neither of them were from Gongaga, were they?

Oh. 

Oh .

Just then, Yuffie came bounding back from the trees. “Guys! I saw cookfires in the east!”

***

The foliage leading out of the ruins thinned out faster than Aerith would have thought. Cait Sith insisted he would have found civilization sooner or later. But it was hard to deny he had led them into the jungle's thickest part first. 

The Lifestream still tickled the edges of her mind. Nature burst all around them. The scent of clean water and fresh flowers gave everyone a spring in their step. Even the heat felt more manageable in the shade of the great trees and mushrooms around them. 

“I haven’t enjoyed being outside this much since the Grasslands,” Tifa said. “It’s weird, but it kind of reminds me of home.”

Nanaki tilted his head. “I had heard the lands around Mount Nibel were cold and dry. Seems a far cry from a steamy jungle.”

“Well, yeah. The weather’s not the same, but there’s something about the air. It’s like being far away from a big city makes you connect with the land a little better.” 

Aerith nodded, reaching for the Lifestream again. She couldn’t help but reflect on the irony of the situation. The further they were from big groups of living people, the closer she felt to the group of dead ones.

Tifa tucked her arm through Cloud’s elbow, and Aerith looked away with a pang of regret. 

“Cloud, what do you think? This remind you of home at all?” 

Cloud shifted his arm. He didn’t quite pull away from Tifa, but he didn’t lean into her either. He glanced at Aerith. 

“Not sure I see Nibelheim as home, Teef. Been a while since I’ve been there.”

“Oh yeah? So what’s ‘home’ these days? Some badass SOLDIER facility?”

“Home is…” Cloud glanced at Aerith again. She blushed and turned away. “Hmm. Guess I’m not sure.”

This isn’t working , she thought. He’s getting too attached.

What, and she wasn’t?

“Well, it reminds me of home,” Tifa insisted. I guess there’s something about being out of a big city. Any kind of backwater feels like home.” 

Cloud gasped and fell to his knees. In a flash, Tifa knelt beside him, taking her arm from under his and using it to support him. 

“Cloud? You okay?”

“...Backwater…” his voice went dead. 

Tifa ran a hand over his shoulder. “Hey. Cloud?” She reached into her pack and pulled out a canteen. She held it out to him and he stared at it with empty eyes.

“How far did Yuffie say we were from the village?”

“Less than a mile,” Nanaki said. “Seems she, Barret, and Cait are already there.”

Aerith watched Tifa stroke Cloud’s back as she tried to get him to drink. 

He needs me . 

Another voice in her head argued back. 

He needs to learn how to lean on her . 

Aerith made a decision that sent a crack through her heart. “I’ll go ahead. Try to see if there’s a clinic or hospital in the village.” 

Tifa nodded as she took Cloud into a wounded carry, his arm draped around her shoulder. “I’ll bring him as soon as I can.”

Cloud groaned. “Aerith…” 

“Stay with Tifa,” she said. “Tifa can keep you safe.” 

Aerith turned and marched down the path, each step like a spear through her heart. 

Chapter Text

Interlude: Gongaga Village

She’d called herself Cissnei. She said she was from Gongaga, but Aerith didn’t buy it. The only thing she heard in Cissnei's voice was the accent of a born-and-bred Midgar girl.

Cissnei was wary of Aerith and the others when they approached the village. She carried herself like she had combat experience. Her eyes never stopped darting back and forth across the group. She knew more than she let on. 

And yet. 

The moment that Aerith introduced herself, Cissnei's entire demeanor changed. She ushered the group into her home, where she offered lodging and food. She never stopped glancing at Aerith in particular. 

Even when Cloud and Tifa came stumbling into the village, Cissnei attended to Aerith. She hovered around her. Cissnei asked if there was anything Aerith needed. Anything to make her more comfortable. Anything to help her get comfortable. Odd, but Aerith was too exhausted to tug on that thread.

Cloud needed to sleep after his episode on the trail. Aerith needed to practice stepping away from him. 

Tifa. Tifa was good for him. Tifa would be there for him and his episodes long after Aerith was gone.

She watched Cloud settle into a guest bed in Cissnei’s house, with Tifa hovering over him. She turned back to the common area, where she saw a handwritten note on the kitchen table. It had Aerith's name on it.

If you are who I think you are, visit the house at the end of the lane. Give them peace, if you can. 

-C

Aerith folded the note and put it in her jacket pocket, next to the two fortunes Cait had given her earlier that day. 

“Old Love lost? New Love found! 

Old Love’s origins here abound!

”Under roof, under ‘shroom:

Chat nearby a rented room!”

Aerith supposed the party was renting a room in Cissnei’s house. So then nearby must be…

A house growing under a big mushroom.

She approached and knocked on the door. A man answered. For a moment, Aerith thought she was looking at another ghost from the Lifestream. 

Or a ghost from her own past.

He had the same jawline. The same twinkle in his eye. He put his hands on his hips the same way, and when he greeted her, he had the same goofy accent. 

“Mister Fair?” She tried to control the shaking in her voice.

“Depends on who’s asking.” He squinted. “I owe you money?”

She shook her head, trying to ignore how similar his mannerisms were. “Someone told me to come to your door. We... might have some stuff to talk about.”

***

Hours passed in the little living room of the Fair household. Despite the heat, a fire crackled in the hearth. Somehow, it felt homey instead of sweltering. The house smelled like sandalwood and cinnamon, and Aerith sank into a fluffy cushion on top of her seat. 

Aerith felt herself at an uncharacteristic loss for words. She hadn’t even caught the first name of the man she’d only heard of as “Zack’s dad.” 

Zack’s mom had joined them too. She’d kept every letter Zack had sent and brought them out like prized trophies to show Aerith. They hadn’t heard from him in six years, they said. 

“But he’s not dead,” insisted Mrs. Fair. “You can call me crazy, but I can feel him out there. He’s alive. But he’s busy. Our boy’s got important things to do.”

Zack’s father cleared his throat. “As long as he’s safe and happy, we’re happy. He’ll get in touch with us in his own time.”

For her part, Aerith had told them about her time with him. The first man she’d ever loved, she said. But the words felt wrong coming out of her mouth. She thought she’d loved Zack. And in some ways she guessed she did. But Aerith had learned there were degrees of love. 

And the emotion she felt now—the one she tried to squash and extinguish—ignited her soul. It made her time with Zack look like the silly crush it was.

Don’t think about it. Don’t give him a reason to shatter. That was how she could show her love to Cloud, though he’d never know it.

As for Zack? She could talk about Zack. 

Zack had helped her start her flower-selling business. He’d taken her shopping topside for the first time. She’d had her first drink with Zack, sneaking into a little bar in Sector Six. And later that night, she’d had her first kiss.

The Fairs came alive after each little vignette. Every story would be full of “oh, that’s Zack all right,” or “he gets that from you, you know.” Always the present tense when the Fairs talked about their son. Never the past tense. He wasn’t dead—not to them. And Aerith could almost believe them.

Still, at the end of each story, she cradled the memory one last time and laid it to rest. This was how she could say goodbye to him. Or the memory of him, in case the Fairs were wrong.

Hours passed, but Aerith and the Fairs had run out of things to talk about. She’d told them every story she had about their time in Midgar.

Her life in the slums hadn’t been good by any stretch. The streets were dangerous, and the Turks never let her wander far. But Zack was a bright spot in an otherwise dingy life.

A knock came at the door as she told them her last story. There'd been a time he’d tried baking cookies for her as a surprise. The SOLDIER barracks didn't have ovens, but there were empty gear lockers. And fire materia.

Before anyone could respond, the door opened and Cloud made his way inside the small house. 

Aerith shot him a look that she hoped said, You don’t wait for someone to get the door?

He raised his eyebrows as he glanced back at her. She knew that mix of indifference and worry. I couldn’t find you. Got worried. 

Leave it to Cloud to climb out of a fugue state and immediately come looking for her.

The Fairs asked Cloud about their son. Still unsteady on his feet, he’d asked them to repeat Zack’s name. Aerith studied him—Cloud wasn’t a good enough actor to fake his confusion. The name was completely foreign to him. 

The four of them huddled awkwardly in the living room. The spell of nostalgia from Aerith’s stories shattered. 

“Sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” murmured Mrs. Fair as they left. 

Aerith turned to the door and smiled. “I doubt I was the only woman in his life. Charming guy like Zack…”

More silence. Aerith bowed and gestured for Cloud to follow her outside. 

After one last look around the Fairs’ home, he joined her in the town’s common area.

She gave him a little wave. “That… wasn’t very nice of me.” She saw the Fairs huddled on a seat through their window, holding each other and shaking. 

“You remember me telling you about Zack, right? At the playground? How… he was my first love.”

Jealousy darkened Cloud’s face. That hadn’t been there the first time she’d told him about Zack. Aerith studied him. He still seemed lost. Unsteady on his feet. He needed to lie down again. 

“Yeah. I remember.”

Aerith gestured at the small home behind them. “This is where he grew up. And now that I’m here, it’s… a lot.” 

She sighed. “I don’t know. I guess I had to say something, right?”

Cloud nodded. 

“Didn’t even occur to me to think how they would feel about it,” Aerith continued. “Pretty selfish, huh? Waltzing in there, stirring up memories.” They still think he’s alive. No, they know he’s alive.

Cloud smiled, reaching for her hand. His eyes looked clearer as he looked at her. “You’re too hard on yourself. Bet it was good for them to get it all out.” 

Aerith stepped away before Cloud could take her hand. She wasn’t sure who else was around. No reason to start any rumors. At least about the two of them. 

“I hope you’re right,” she said. 

Cloud pulled his hand back, blushing. “So. This Zack guy. You still like him?”

Aerith had to stop herself from snorting. As blunt as the back edge of his sword. 

Well, at least he didn’t play games. 

“Wow,” she said, lifting her eyebrows. “You really went there, huh?”

Cloud didn’t break eye contact with her. There was something in his expression as he looked at her. He was searching. Hoping. Aerith realized that Cloud had wrapped a dozen other worries into his question. 

If you still like Zack, what does that mean for us?

Was I wrong for getting my hopes up?

Did I misread everything we’ve been through?

Is this why I can’t fall in love with you?

Cloud continued to stare at her, feigning nonchalance. But Aerith saw how his breathing had picked up. His hands bunched and unbunched. He shifted his weight from one leg to another. 

Aerith thought back to her visions. Pieces that her future self had given her—Cloud holding her broken body, sobbing. She thought back to Barret’s words in the lowlands. If something happened to Marlene, that would be it. It would be the end of me.

The thick jungle air pressed against her as her thoughts raced. She gazed into Cloud’s vulnerable eyes. She breathed, feeling the heat and pressure around her. 

She thought of Tifa, who only wanted to give Cloud the peace that he seemed to give her without realizing it. She thought of a future where Cloud and Tifa could learn, somehow, to be happy in a world Aerith had made safe for them. 

Tell him yes, she told herself. Let him down easy. Step aside. 

It wasn’t fair. All she wanted to do was throw her arms around him again. To hold him and let him hold her. He wanted Cloud to take her hand and never let her go as she told him exactly what Zack meant to her. Zack was a flickering candle flame next to an inferno of love and want. 

Cloud swallowed. His question hung, unanswered, between the two of them. Aerith felt herself losing the battle to push him away. 

And then she saw Tifa approaching from the bottom of the hill. 

Tifa’s eyes darted between Aerith and Cloud, but she smiled when she caught Aerith’s attention. Before Tifa could hear them, Aerith needed to end this conversation. 

She looked at Cloud, and she realized how she must have felt when she visited his dreams in Midgar. Whatever happens, you can’t fall in love with me…

Aerith looked away. She couldn’t face him. He’d catch her lie. 

This Zack guy. You still like him?

Say yes. Say you love him and wait for him. 

Instead, Aerith took a half measure. “He’s never... given me reason not to,” she rasped. That was the best she could do. The lie burned her tongue on the way out of her mouth. 

Cloud’s jaw tightened and his face fell. Aerith saw him retreat into himself. His shoulders slumped and he swayed on his feet. 

The transformation happened before Aerith’s eyes. She doubted anyone else knew Cloud well enough to see what had happened, though.

Cloud—the real Cloud—retreated into the persona he’d made for himself. He puffed his chest out and set his jaw. He relaxed his clenched fists and rested them on his hips. 

He became the SOLDIER he thought the world wanted to see. Aerith's Cloud vanished.

Tifa bounded up to the two of them with a smile and a wave. Cloud offered a slight nod in her direction. 

“Forget about that loser,” Cloud spat. Tifa, stunned, looked at Cloud, then back at Aerith. 

“Hate to break it to you, but if he’s been gone this long, the man is dea-”

He groaned as his SOLDIER facade shattered almost as fast as it had come. He clutched his head. Aerith started to reach for him, but Tifa got to him first. She caught him and held him up. 

“I’m here,” Tifa whispered to him. Cloud pulled away, swinging his head back and forth between her and Aerith. His attention lingered on her, and Aerith saw the apology form on his lips before he shoved it back down. 

“I’m gonna go lie down,” he muttered. He staggered off. 

Tifa watched him go with a pained expression. Before long, the two of them stood alone outside the Fair house. A small breeze blew from the jungle, bringing wild scents into the town. 

“You’ll be good to him, right?” Aerith asked in a whisper. “He… needs a lot. More than I can give him.” 

Tifa reached for Aerith’s arm and gave it a little squeeze. “I’ll give him everything I have.”

The two of them walked up Gongaga’s main street together, cresting the top of the hill at the edge of the little town. They stood in silence, a mountain of unspoken words rising between them. 

Aerith breathed. She felt sunlight on her skin, clean air in her lungs, and the warmth of the best friend she’d ever had beside her.

She’d never felt worse in her entire life.

She had no idea how long she and Tifa stood there. She gazed out at the jungle beyond the village and wondered why the Lifestream felt so strong here. She almost felt the connection surge, a flurry of voices chattering around her. 

And then, an explosion ripped through the air.

Chapter Text

Fate needs an arbiter

Aerith still felt the ringing in her ears as her Chocobo hurtled through the undergrowth. She smelled smoke in the air, along with the harsh chemical scent of Mako. The jungle became a blur of green as her bird dashed onward. They bounced between branches and mushrooms towards Gongaga’s ruined reactor. 

Another ruined reactor . 

She couldn’t afford to think about the ramifications of another Mako pool right now. She couldn’t think about communing with her future self, or about her failure at the Corel reactor. Gongaga Village was in danger- innocents were in danger. She had to help. 

They’d split into two groups to make their approach. Cloud, Barret, Nanaki, and Cait went ahead. A strike force of steel, lead, fang, and magic that should be able to confront any danger. 

Aerith, Yuffie, and Tifa came later, on chocobos. Tifa took point, while Aerith looked after Yuffie. The ninja had begun muttering to herself- her simmering hatred of Shinra had begun to boil over. Aerith heard snatches of “Scarlet,” and “revenge,” but couldn’t talk Yuffie down at the pace they were going.

The dash through the jungle ended at the outer structures of the reactor. Aerith felt the Lifestream rise to a fever pitch in her ears: the chorus of souls wailed in fear and agony. Below the voices, Aerith felt a familiar thrum.

A Weapon had awakened far below. 

They reached the reactor’s inner gates and left their chocobos behind.

“We’re almost there,” Tifa muttered. She took a grappling gun- another gift from Cissnei- and began the ascent into the core. Aerith and Yuffie followed as the sounds of fighting grew louder. 

They clambered through steel girders and crumbling walls. The sounds of violence ahead guided them. Yuffie grabbed Aerith’s arm. 

“Hey.” 

Aerith looked back and flinched at the fire in Yuffie’s eyes. 

“You see an old broad named Scarlet, you leave her to me.” Yuffe took out her shuriken and slotted poison materia into it. “The bitch has to suffer before she dies.” 

Hate roiled off of her in waves. Aerith watched the anger transform Yuffie from a happy-go-lucky kid into something darker. Something dangerous. 

Hate is the best fuel on the whole damn Planet…

Before Aerith could respond, Yuffie leapt over a heap of fallen girders, toward the sound of the fight. Tifa followed after her. 

Aerith took out her own grappling gun with a grimace. She didn’t have the same arm strength as the other two. Her whole body ached from the sprint toward the reactor’s inner core. Setting the pain aside, she aimed her gun towards a hole in the chamber wall. 

She alighted on a small platform and watched pandemonium unfold under her.

A horde of Shinra experiments scrambled over rickety catwalks. They were dreadful sights: beasts in the shape of men with oozing scales and long claws. A stinking, acrid pool of Mako seethed under the walkways. Sunlight cascaded through holes in the reactor’s roof. On one end of the inner sanctum, Aerith watched her friends fight for their lives. 

Barret and Cait stood back to back, launching bullets and spells toward the monsters. Nanaki darted too and fro on the other end of their little platform, gnashing at fiends that joined the fray. She had never seen any of them fight as ferociously as they did now, with their backs against a literal wall. 

She saw the churning, swirling Mako lap against the edge of the platform that the boys fought on. But there were only three there. Where was…

“Cloud!” 

Tifa cried out his name and leapt from her vantage point above. Cloud had collapsed, his sword dropped alongside him. He groaned in pain as Mako fumes swirled around him. 

The poisoning.  

Aerith and Yuffie dropped down, helping the others fight Shinra’s monsters. Together, they began to turn the tide. As soon as the last fiend dropped into the pool below, another onslaught began. 

“Barret! Get Cloud to safety!” Tifa’s voice rang out with authority. A mechanical monstrosity shot down from a Shinra carrier ship above. “We’ll cover you.” 

Yuffie drew her weapon and hissed at the machine. “ She’s piloting it.”

Aerith strained her eyesight to see Scarlet at the helm of the enormous red mech. She’d seen the head of Shinra’s weapons department more than once during her captivity, and had learned to recognize that garish shade of red as her signature.

“I hate to say it, darlings, but I’m not here for you.” Scarlet’s voice rang out through the speakers of her mech. It soared through the air as its guns bristled. “The real prize is below, you see.”

Aerith caught a glimpse of a vast shadow in the pool of Mako below. A Weapon. 

“She has to die,” Yuffie spat. “Painfully.”

The ninja leapt into the air and hurtled a barrage of spells at the machine. With a graceful flip, she flung her shuriken at the exposed cockpit. 

Can you help us? Aerith cast her thoughts to the Weapon below. You called me here, right? Was it to fight her?

“My, you seem desperate,” Scarlet taunted. She unleashed a salvo of rockets into the pool below, then launched another round at the party. Aerith barely managed to summon a shield to block them.

The Weapon rebuffed her attempts at contact. 

FIGHT FIRST .

Desperate, Aerith reached out to her future self. Are you there? 

She felt a jagged, incomplete response. She couldn’t meditate in the midst of a fight. Couldn’t focus. 

Then we’ll have to bring Scarlet down . 

Tifa had joined Yuffie in the air. She’d wrapped a leg around a piston of Scarlet’s mech, driving her fists into exposed joints. The mech seized in the air. Aerith saw chi pooling around Tifa’s fists, allowing her to strike the mech’s armor with iron-hard blows.